Owned by not-for-profit broadcaster Window to the World Communications, Inc., it is sister to commercial classical music radio station WFMT (98.7 FM).

The two stations share studios in the Renée Crown Public Media Center, located at 5400 North Saint Louis Avenue (adjacent to the main campus of Northeastern Illinois University) in the city's North Park neighborhood; its transmitter facility is atop the Willis Tower on South Wacker Drive in the Chicago Loop.

Minow stated that the only really important decision that he made during his tenure as chair of WTTW was the recruitment of William J. McCarter Jr. as president and chief executive officer, a post which he held for 27 years.

Having run public station WETA-TV in Washington, D.C., McCarter—a decorated Korean War hero and a veteran television pioneer—got his start in the broadcasting industry as a cameraman for American Bandstand and then as a part of the Army-McCarthy hearings on Capitol Hill.

[3][4] to air additional classroom instructional courses, especially those displaced as more and more of its own broadcast day was filled first with programming from National Educational Television (NET).

[11] It had been one of the last in Chicago to transmit in black-and-white and by then its schedule was filled with what former WTTW station manager Edward Morris called "talking heads and a blackboard".

[12] In 1977, WTTW sold the long-dark WXXW license a to consortium led by City Colleges of Chicago; the station ultimately became WYCC.

While WGN-TV's analog transmitter was located atop the John Hancock Center at the time, allowing for engineers to almost immediately thwart the video hacker by changing the studio-to-transmitter frequency, WTTW's transmitter was located atop the Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower), which made it harder to stop the hacker before the interruption voluntarily concluded after almost two minutes.

[14][15] On June 4, 2010, Window to the World Communications announced that it would lay off around 12% of WTTW and WFMT's employee base and extend a salary freeze instituted in 2009 for one additional year, in an effort to cut $3 million in operating costs due to declining revenue, effects from the economic downturn and the loss of $1.25 million in grant money from the Illinois General Assembly.

[16] Among the employees exiting WTTW in that layoff were Randy Chandler, Amy Christenson, Andy Fontana, Marc Glick, Susan Godfrey, Andrea Guthmann, Kari Hurley, Andre Jones, Shaunese Teamer, Sarah Warner and Tom Wuellner.

[18] In 2014, WTTW eliminated the position of Holly Gilson, a 13-year veteran of the company who most recently had been director of strategic partnerships and special projects.

)[23] On December 7, 2017, Window to the World Communications announced its intent to purchase the WYCC license outright, reuniting the stations under one organization.

[28] Window to the World Communications relinquished the WYCC license, effective June 1, 2022, advising viewers the same shows were available on its multiplexed channels and the PBS app.

Because of this, WTTW engineers chose to modify existing Ampex quadruplex recorders to provide a stereo medium in sync with the video portion of the program.

WTTW began syndicating Made in Chicago to other public television stations under the new title Soundstage, with the first official taping of that program in June 1974 featuring previously filmed concert footage of folk singer Jim Croce prior to his death in a plane crash in September 1973.

WTTW has produced over 110 SoundStage episodes from its Chicago studios, the first of which featured Chicago blues legend Muddy Waters surrounded by his young proteges: Dr. John, Junior Wells, Michael Bloomfield, Koko Taylor, Rollo Radford, Buddy Guy, Nick Gravenites, Buddy Miles and his long-time collaborator, pianist Otis Spann among others.

In addition, WTTW features documentaries hosted by Geoffrey Baer, spotlighting the history and culture of various parts of the Chicago area.