The three stations share studios on North Pearl Street near the OSU campus; WOSU-TV's transmitter is located on Highland Lakes Avenue in Westerville, Ohio.

WOSU-TV began broadcasting on February 20, 1956, though Ohio State University had pushed to start an educational television station as early as 1951.

A major step forward for the station was its 1968 telecast of a highly anticipated football game between Ohio State and Michigan, as many went out to buy all-channel television sets or converters.

[4] In spite of being forced to UHF, the university chose to press forward with its plans for educational TV,[5] requiring it to start over with its preparation of engineering data for the application.

[9] OSU approved a contract for tower construction on the corner of Star Road and Lane Avenue in February 1954,[10] and the television studio on the site broke ground that December.

[15] A local children's show, Five and Ten, was among channel 34's early successes; another offering, the German Hour, was a carry-over from a popular WOSU radio program.

The general audience was limited by the fact that most sets of the time did not come equipped to tune the UHF band; the university estimated only about 2,000 Columbus-area homes could watch.

[17] In 1959, the station acquired the first video tape recorder in Columbus; its studios grew cramped, with the men's restroom doubling as an office and a small house being built nearby to alleviate the crowded conditions.

In 1955, George E. Condon of the Cleveland Plain Dealer asked what might motivate households to notice channel 34 and convert their VHF-only sets to receive the area's first UHF station.

[25] The broadcast, organized at the last minute and produced by ABC Sports,[26] was announced by the station's program director and the general manager of WOSU; the Buckeyes won the game en route to a national championship.

[26] Channel 34 broadcast multiple sold-out OSU home football games in 1969, 1970,[27] and 1971, conditional on public support to front the costs of renting equipment.

[29] From 1978 to 1990, the station offered tape-delayed football broadcasts, which included the Ohio State Marching Band's pregame and halftime routines.

[32] In 1971, WOSU-TV received federal funding to help acquire local color cameras and build the Westerville tower,[33][a] which was completed in January 1973.

[48] In the late 1970s, WOSU's unconventional programming philosophy helped it become one of the fastest-growing PBS stations in the country in total viewership with frequent runs of such shows as Doctor Who, All Creatures Great and Small, and The Twilight Zone.

This came in spite of the station's chief local program of the time, Ohio Journal, being canceled after five years in 1980 due to insufficient state funding.

Workplace conditions were characterized by pervasive "paralysis and paranoia", low salaries and staff morale, aging equipment, and a "mysterious" chain of command to the rest of the university.

[55] WOSU-TV came in for special criticism in the external review, which called its output "basic at best" and noted that channel 34's operation evinced the radio-first nature of WOSU.

[56] When the review process culminated in 1990, a strategic plan was drafted for the WOSU stations, which were placed under the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences—the OSU academic unit that included programs in journalism and communication.

The implementation of the strategic plan was adversely affected by Jennings's departure that same year, and the station became a neglected component of the college and the primary destination of its budget cuts during university-wide spending reductions in the early 1990s.

[65] The arrangement was also useful to COSI, which was facing declining attendance and seeking partners to share in its high utility costs in its new Broad Street building.

[67] In order to make the move to digital, the station launched a three-year capital campaign, the first in the history of WOSU broadcasting, to support the new studio and transmission equipment necessary for the conversion.

WOSU general manager Tom Rieland told The Columbus Dispatch that Portsmouth had "incredible duplication of PBS signals"; he cited high cable penetration and the availability of WOUB-TV in Athens as well as transmitters of Kentucky Educational Television and West Virginia Public Broadcasting.