Once the deal was approved in November of that year, the FCC ruled that Gannett would have to divest WLWT, WMAZ-TV in Macon, Georgia, and KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, due to ownership restrictions; Gannett ultimately retained ownership of WMAZ-TV after the FCC allowed companies to own more television stations.

[14][15][16][17] As Gannett had owned The Cincinnati Enquirer since 1979 (and remains the newspaper's owner to this day) and had recently acquired Oklahoma City-based cable provider Multimedia Cablevision, the company had to obtain a temporary waiver of an FCC cross-ownership rule which prohibited common ownership of a television station and a newspaper or a cable television provider in the same market in order for Gannett to close on the Multimedia group.

When the waiver expired in December 1996, Gannett opted to keep the Enquirer (as well as sister newspaper The Niagara Gazette, which would later be sold) and swap WLWT and KOCO-TV to Argyle Television Holdings II in exchange for WGRZ in Buffalo, New York and WZZM in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a deal which was finalized in January 1997.

In 1998, Hearst traded WDTN and WNAC-TV in Providence, Rhode Island to Sunrise Television in exchange for KSBW in Salinas, California, WPTZ in Plattsburgh, New York, and WNNE in Hartford, Vermont.

In June 1996, WKRC-TV and WCPO-TV traded networks, leaving WLWT as the only Cincinnati television station to never change its affiliation.

The expected lower ratings in a late night time slot on WLWT (along with low promotion of UPN programming outside of Star Trek: Voyager) saw UPN capitulate and affiliate with former WB affiliate WBQC-CA (channel 25) in September 1998 as the network expanded to a ten-hour schedule that month which would have likely seen program rejections from WLWT due to lack of schedule room.

In June 1999, WLWT moved its studios from Crosley Square to the Mount Auburn neighborhood, in a building that once served as the corporate headquarters of WKRC-TV's founding owners Taft Broadcasting.

[19] This is because after abandoning local non-news program production, the station found that Crosley Square, with its two-story ballrooms and basement newsroom, was built more for live entertainment broadcasts than a news operation.

The modern WLW-WLWT partnership ended on March 31, 2010; WLWT currently provides news and weather to several Cincinnati radio stations.

The transmission tower seen at the beginning of the 1978–1982 CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati actually belonged to WLWT—it was located at the WLWT transmitter at 2222 Chickasaw Street.

[23] The substitution of WTWO in place of WLWT lasted until July 19, 2012, when a carriage deal was reached between Hearst and Time Warner.

The latter (if not a national simulcast on ABC through WCPO-TV) means a delay of The Voice to overnight hours, with voting limited to the internet during the program's normal timeslot.

The station also airs the Saturday edition of NBC Nightly News on a half-hour tape delay at 7 p.m. due to an hour-long 6 p.m. newscast.

The station also aired any nationally televised Reds games through NBC's MLB broadcast contract from its 1948 sign-on until 1989, including their back-to-back World Series titles in 1975 and 1976.

Also calling games on WLWT were Ken Wilson, Charlie Jones, Bill Brown, Ray Lane, Johnny Bench, and Joe Morgan.

[28] On April 20, 2013, WLWT became the fourth and final Cincinnati television station to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition.