Owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, the station maintains transmitter facilities on Cushman Drive (near US 1) on the northeast side of Columbia.
Prior to WZRB's sign-on, Sumter-licensed WB affiliate WBHQ (channel 63, now WKTC) carried UPN programming on a secondary basis, airing its prime time schedule on a two-hour delay.
On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW.
On December 2, 2013, Roberts filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to sell WZRB to Radiant Light Ministries, a subsidiary of religious broadcaster Tri-State Christian Television;[4] however, on December 11, the United States bankruptcy court gave initial approval for a plan by Roberts' creditors to instead transfer WZRB and its sister stations, WRBU in St. Louis and WAZE-LP in Evansville, Indiana, to a trust overseen by former LIN Media CEO Gary Chapman with Ion Media Networks (a creditor in Roberts' Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings) as its beneficiary, with Roberts' attorney subsequently stating that Ion would purchase the three stations.
For the first month of its tenure as an Ion O&O, CW programming—including prime time shows—continued to air on the station as a secondary affiliation, preempting one hour of Ion's daytime lineup and the first two hours of its prime time schedule (although the Vortexx children's block on Saturday mornings, was aired one hour earlier than the network's recommended timeslot nationwide, at 6 a.m. in order to accommodate Ion programming that started at 11 a.m.).