What channel is CBS in Milwaukee?

WDJT-TV, virtual channel 58 (UHF digital channel 46), is a CBS-affiliated television station licensed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. Owned by Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting, it is a sister station to Class A MeTV owned-and-operated station WBME-CD (channel 41), Racine-licensed independent station WMLW-TV (channel 49, which shares spectrum with WBME-CD), and low-powered Telemundo affiliate WYTU-LD (channel 63), which WDJT simulcasts in widescreen standard definition on its respective second, third and fourth digital subchannels to expand their reach across southeastern Wisconsin. All four stations share studios on South 60th Street in Milwaukee (near West Allis); WDJT's transmitter is located in Milwaukee's Lincoln Park (next to the transmitter belonging to ABC affiliate WISN-TV, channel 12).

WDJT-TV

On cable, WDJT-TV is carried on Charter Spectrum and AT&T U-verse channel 5 (channel 9 in Sheboygan and Fond du Lac, and on channel 8 on some systems), with the station's HD signal on Spectrum digital channel 1005 (channel 605 on legacy Charter systems), and on U-verse digital channel 1005.

The station first signed on the air on November 10, 1988, operating as an independent station. Its call letters were selected in honor of its original owners, Debra Jackson and John Torres, the former of whom died before the station took to the air. With the banks skittish about the station's prospects due to Jackson's death, Torres sold controlling interest to Weigel Broadcasting in order to get more financing. Weigel bought out Torres' interest shortly before the station signed on. Originally branded as "Classic 58", its programming fare consisted of older sitcoms, lower-tier first-run syndicated shows, and a mix of public domain and lower-demand studio films. The locally based show "The Bowling Game" also moved to the station in 1989 after a two-year hiatus from WVTV (channel 18), airing intermittently until 1991. It operated from a bare-bones facility on the top floors of the Marc Plaza Hotel (now the Hilton Milwaukee City Center), using a transmitter atop the hotel that had once been used by WVTV and low-power WMKE-LP (then-channel 8, now channel 21).

As an independent, WDJT found the going difficult against WVTV and WCGV-TV (channel 24). Although Milwaukee was big enough on paper to support what were essentially three independent stations (Fox affiliate WCGV was essentially programmed as an independent, as the network would not air a full week's worth of programming until 1993), there simply was not enough programming to go around. Most of the stronger first-run and off-network syndicated programs had been picked clean not only by WVTV and WCGV, but also the market's three network affiliates. It was also hampered by a weak signal that effectively limited channel 58's coverage area to Milwaukee and its inner-ring suburbs such as Cudahy, Waukesha and West Allis. The few syndicators who otherwise would have been willing to air their programming on channel 58 largely shied away due to its weak signal. Additionally, it was near the top of the UHF dial; generally until the cable age, most southeastern Wisconsin households never tuned past WMVT, the area's secondary PBS member station on channel 36. The station also came to the air three years before must-carry rules were put into place.

In January and February 1992, WDJT carried full-day coverage of the criminal trial of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer fed and produced by WITI (channel 6). This allowed WITI to carry the CBS lineup without pre-emption, while giving Milwaukee an over-the-air venue for the trial.

Until 1993, many area cable systems chose not to carry it due to a lack of compelling programming, poor signal quality or inadequate viewership—most notably Marcus Cable (now part of Charter Communications), the largest cable provider in Milwaukee's outer suburbs. On the systems that did carry it, it was relegated to a lower-tier slot; it aired on channel 29 on Milwaukee's Time Warner Cable system, and on channel 48 in outlying areas.

In May 1994, New World Communications announced that most of its stations, including Milwaukee's WITI, would become Fox affiliates. CBS approached all four of Milwaukee's other major stations–WTMJ-TV (channel 4), WISN-TV (channel 12, which was affiliated with CBS from 1961 to 1977), WVTV, and WCGV (which to that point carried selected CBS programs that WITI chose not to carry). None of those stations were interested, although WVTV's then-owner, Gaylord Broadcasting (which had by that time had ceded operational control to WCGV), switched two of its other stations (KTVT in Fort Worth, Texas and KSTW in Tacoma, Washington) to CBS. This left CBS to negotiate with the city's lower-profile independents, WJJA (channel 49, now WMLW-TV) and WDJT, as well as religious station WVCY-TV (channel 30). After negotiations with both WJJA and WDJT fell through, CBS made an abortive attempt to buy WVCY before station owner Vic Eliason, in consultation with VCY America's board, decided not to sell.

With just days before WITI was to join Fox, CBS was faced with having to pipe in affiliate WISC-TV in Madison, or its two owned-and-operated stations in the region, WFRV-TV in Green Bay or WBBM-TV in Chicago, for cable subscribers while it found a new affiliate in Milwaukee. Out of desperation, CBS agreed to affiliate with WDJT, despite its subpar signal and the lack of a news department. CBS faced similar situations in Atlanta, Austin, Cleveland and Detroit. In all these cases, the longtime CBS affiliates all switched to Fox. While CBS was able to land on higher-profile stations in Atlanta, Austin and Cleveland, it was unable to do so in Detroit or Milwaukee. This would be one of two 11th-hour affiliation deals Weigel landed with a Big Three network; a year later, its low-powered outlet in South Bend, Indiana; W58BT (now WBND), joined ABC after longtime affiliate WSJV switched to Fox.

On December 11, 1994, WDJT became the sixth station in Milwaukee to carry CBS. The network first aligned with WTMJ from 1947 to 1953, followed by now-defunct WCAN-TV (channel 25) from 1953 to 1955, WVTV (then known as WXIX) from 1955 to 1959, WITI from 1959 to 1961, WISN-TV from 1961 to 1977, and WITI again from 1977 to 1994. The first CBS program to air on channel 58 that day was "CBS News Sunday Morning". Some existing syndicated programming on WDJT's schedule which would otherwise air in CBS-designated timeslots was either moved to overnight slots on the station or turned over to sister station W65BT (now WBME-CD, channel 41) to fulfill contracts.

Not even Weigel had expected WDJT to replace WITI as Milwaukee's CBS affiliate. For the next year and a half, channel 58 was thus forced to make do with a hastily made logo of WDJT's italic Times New Roman '58' of the time in red (and later yellow) superimposed on the CBS Eye, and a bare-bones image campaign using default CBS graphics. Meanwhile, the station began searching for a new studio befitting its new status, as well as building a news department. Until the 2009 digital television transition, WDJT was the only CBS affiliate in Wisconsin that broadcast on the UHF band, but retains the highest PSIP channel number out of the state's CBS affiliates post-transition.

WDJT's CBS affiliation sent the area's cable systems scrambling to add the station or give it a higher profile slot. It took until March 1995 for some portions of Marcus Cable's service area to pick up the station, though outer portions of the market had access to WISC, WFRV or WBBM as a second CBS signal depending on their location. Viewers in these areas who did not have set-top antennas thus missed several major events to which CBS held the rights, including the PGA Tour, the Grammy Awards, the Daytona 500, Big Ten Conference basketball, and the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments. "The Young and the Restless", which had aired on a one-day delay at 9 a.m. weekdays since the early 1980s on WITI, began airing in the network-mandated timeslot for the Central Time Zone of 11:00 a.m. on WDJT. The station also cleared "CBS This Morning" for the full two hours; WITI had preempted the first hour. WDJT also picked up the "Late Show with David Letterman", which had aired on WCGV after WITI passed on it. "Donahue" moved to the station in September 1995 for its last season from WITI as WDJT's first true high-profile syndication acquisition. However, outside of network hours, the station's schedule resembled that of a minor-network affiliate or a lower-tier independent; it consisted mostly of low-profile sitcoms, first-run syndicated programs turned down by the other Milwaukee stations, and second-run syndicated fare.

It eventually acquired a near-universal channel 5 cable slot on most area systems, but several complications (including systems which didn't carry it on cable channel 5) disallowed WDJT from utilizing an alternate "CBS 5" branding, including likely confusion with then-CBS O&O WFRV-TV in Green Bay, which broadcasts on channel 5.

In early 1996, WDJT moved to a new studio in a converted commercial building which was part of the former Allis-Chalmers manufacturing complex on South 60th Street, right on the line between Milwaukee and West Allis. It also launched a news department and website. That year, WDJT also began to carry freshman series "Judge Judy", which gave the station its first ratings traction outside of network hours, though it moved to WITI by September 2000 as that station decided to move away from an afternoon schedule dependent on "tabloid" talk shows. Three years later in 1999, the station's current Lincoln Park transmitter was put into service, giving the station an over-the-air signal comparable to Milwaukee's other major commercial stations. Weigel would use this tower to bring WDJT's two low-powered sister stations on an even footing in the market with all the market's main stations transmitting from the same area.

The station scored a major coup in early 2004 just before Ken Jennings started his record "Jeopardy!" winning streak, when the perceived costs and demographics of syndication of that show, along with Sony Pictures Television/King World companion show "Wheel of Fortune" led to WTMJ-TV deciding not to renew rights to either series. Channel 4 had aired the syndication version of "Wheel of Fortune" since its premiere in 1983, and had aired "Jeopardy!" since its 1984 premiere. WDJT snapped up the rights for both game shows beginning in September 2005, and decided to schedule them in their traditional block scheduling setup between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m before primetime; the station had dropped its 6 p.m. newscast several years before to carry the first two seasons of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" at 6 p.m., which later moved to WISN-TV. "Jeopardy!" then gained ratings being led in by the "CBS Evening News" rather than low-tier programming such as "American Journal" in its former 3:30 p.m. berth on WTMJ, and both programs easily outrate their competition of 6 p.m. local news on the other three Milwaukee stations, and entertainment newsmagazine programming at 6:30 p.m. WTMJ has since struggled with either lower-tier entertainment newsmagazines or newscasts in the 6:30 p.m. timeslot.

In 2007, WDJT gained national attention after its live news truck broke through ice on Big Muskego Lake in Muskego while covering a story on ice safety. The estimated cost of repair was $250,000. A week later, the station began airing a public service announcement on ice safety which premiered during CBS' Super Bowl XLI coverage, making light of the situation by referring to their news department as providing "the most in-depth coverage in Milwaukee".

The station asked CBS to allow it to carry as many New York Jets games as were available for the 2008 season, since that team acquired former Packer quarterback Brett Favre on August 7, 2008, and expected high viewer interest from Milwaukee viewers for Jets games. Since CBS holds the rights to the AFC contract, the majority of Jets games are carried on that network. Station general manager Jim Hall asserted that the Jets were the station's "adopted team" for that season (the Jets traded Favre to the Minnesota Vikings in the 2009 off-season).
On August 29, 2008, WDJT became the first commercial television station in Milwaukee to produce a local program in high definition without the assistance of Milwaukee Public Television or other stations in the Hearst Television chain, as WISN had done in the past—when it aired the hour-long special "105 Years in the Making", which was produced in conjunction with Harley-Davidson's 105th Anniversary celebration that weekend. In late May 2010, the station became the fourth commercial station in the market begin airing its syndicated programming in high definition, a process which was completed in the fall of 2014 with an all-HD schedule of local and syndicated programming (outside of paid programming). The station began to air internal promos in HD at the start of the 2011–12 television season, and outside advertising in the format in January 2012 in concert with the station's conversion to HD news. In 2010, one of WDJT's live trucks drove away from a scene with its telescoping mast raised and into high voltage electrical transmission lines. The two occupants of the vehicle were able to escape unharmed. Another WDJT truck had previously hit electrical wires in nearby Waukesha in April 2005, causing the top of the mast to snap off.

On July 22, 2010, the Milwaukee area experienced a major flash flooding event which caused major damage in several parts of Milwaukee County. Although Weigel's West Allis studios did not suffer any damage, the Lincoln Park transmitter, located only a few hundred feet from Lincoln Creek suffered flooding damage within the transmission shed, forcing the station off the air for the majority of three days while the equipment was dried out and repaired. WMLW-CA's analog transmitter was used to relay WDJT's signal in some form to viewers; WTMJ offered the use of its 4.3 subchannel to transmit WDJT's programming to a majority of the Milwaukee market as gratitude for a 2009 incident in which WTMJ was taken off-the-air due to a lightning strike and Weigel offered the station the use of a WBME subchannel temporarily. This TV and Shorewest TV were also off-the air until July 25, when WDJT resumed full operations over the Weigel transmitter.

For many years, WDJT had been one of CBS' weaker affiliates. However, the station's syndicated schedule (which includes the Sony game show block that wins its 6-7 p.m. time period locally) has placed WDJT in a better ratings position than CBS-affiliated UHF stations in Detroit and Atlanta, and the station has become competitive in primetime due to the network's high ratings. The station also has retained the same "CBS 58" branding since December 1994, compared to Detroit and Atlanta, where the branding and newscast direction (in the case of Detroit, lack of newscasts) has shifted for each station multiple times. As such, it has fared relatively well compared to most of the other former independent stations and Fox affiliates that affiliated with CBS or another "Big Three" network during the 1994–96 affiliation switches. As of August 26, 2014, WDJT became the longest-tenured CBS affiliate in the Milwaukee market, passing WITI's 19 years and 8½ months of service over two separate stints.

On October 30, 2014, the station debuted its first major imaging change to its logo since 2001, retiring its Eurostile numerical logo which had been revised once in September 2011 in favor of a news graphics and openings package used by CBS owned-and-operated stations of CBS Television Stations. The new logo's silver CBS Eyemark and gold channel numbers in bold Helvetica resemble those of CBS's Los Angeles flagship KCBS-TV. The new imaging also saw the end of the all-day use of the Ten at 10:00 format with weather closing out the starting 'A block' outside of the morning newscast with an 'on the 1's' format with traffic reports. The station's weather reports now are part of the traditional midpoint 'B block' of each newscast. The station unveiled a new set on October 12, 2015, after a two-month process where the separated newsroom (which was used as a combined set from the news department's launch until 2011) and news studio space introduced in 2011 were combined together during a large-scale remodeling process. A set utilized in a temporary space for WDJT during the process was converted to permanent use for WYTU's newscasts.

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
WDJT has, in the past, used a fourth and fifth digital subchannel for multicasting games during the early rounds of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament in mid-March. From 2008 to 2010, when CBS restricted stations to only one multicast, the station aired the additional game over WDJT-DT3 (in 2008 as MeTV, and 2009 and 2010 as This TV Milwaukee), and removed 58.4 from service. This multicasting of games was discontinued in 2011, due to CBS and the Turner Broadcasting System's TBS, TNT and TruTV sharing the broadcast rights to the tournament under a new broadcast contract that began that year. Digital subchannels 58.4 and 58.5 returned to use in May 2009 and were added permanently into channel maps on digital converter boxes and television sets for the possibility of future use.

Dish Network began carrying the station's high definition feed on October 28, 2010; the provider had not carried it until then as Weigel's retransmission consent pricing was higher than Dish would agree to (though what terms Dish came to Weigel are unknown). In June 2012, WDJT began to flag its standard definition presentation on 58.1 with the AFD #8 code, so SD viewers see the station's 16:9 picture in full on a 4:3 screen without letterboxing, thus causing some vertical stretching with that picture.

The station has carried a second audio program channel since the Lincoln Park transmitter went into service in 1999, both in the station's analog and digital forms, and provides all CBS programming available with DVS, along with NFL on CBS coverage featuring Spanish-language audio, regardless of FCC regulations over the years.

In June 2016, WDJT added a near full-time stream of the main signal for viewers in the Milwaukee market (outside of sports blackouts) as a part of CBS All Access, the network's paid over-the-top service.

WDJT was the originating station of Me-TV Milwaukee, which carried a lineup of classic television series modeled after the MeTV format introduced by Chicago sister station WWME-CA in 2005. It launched on March 1, 2008 on digital subchannel 58.3. In mid-April 2008, Weigel acquired Racine-licensed home shopping station WJJA (channel 49, now WMLW-TV), and immediately began moving MeTV programming to that station, changing the station's callsign to WBME-TV. The simulcast was maintained until October 30, 2008, after a new digital transmitter for WBME on the Weigel tower was turned on in mid-October.

On August 7, 2012, MeTV (in its national network form) returned to WDJT on channel 58.2, as WBME and WMLW-CA swapped their programming between the two stations' prior channel allocations to allow WMLW to air HD programming on a full-power signal; WMLW had been carried on 58.2 since 2004, both to provide a signal of that station receivable in the entire market and a quality feed of the station to local cable providers. In this form, the station carries most of the national feed of MeTV with some minor variations in non-critical hours for license maintenance concerns such as E/I programming, along with a late-night rebroadcast of WDJT's 9 p.m. newscast on WMLW.

On November 1, 2008, Weigel launched the digital multicast network This TV in Milwaukee on WDJT-DT3 in cooperation with MGM Television, which provides the network with films and television series from the MGM library. The introduction "man on the street" promotions for the network were recorded throughout Milwaukee, and This TV's original imaging voice was Robb Edwards, former radio host at WTMJ (620 AM) and WOKY (920 AM), and the public address announcer at Miller Park, making it one of the few This O&O stations in the Weigel era of the network. This TV remains on the subchannel as of November 1, 2013, when Tribune Broadcasting (which assumed ownership of WITI eight weeks later when its acquisition of Local TV was finalized) took over operations of the network; as a result of this transfer, the network will likely move to WITI once This TV's affiliation contract with Weigel's Milwaukee division ends.

On March 3, 2015, Weigel moved This TV to WMLW's third subchannel in order to consolidate their owned subchannel networks onto WDJT, and shuffled Heroes & Icons, which had launched on September 29, 2014 on WMLW-DT3 locally with a format of action, crime and western programming targeted towards men, to WDJT-DT3.

H&I moved to WMLW-DT3 on January 8, 2018, as part of a wide-ranging number of moves involving the sale of the WMLW spectrum to the FCC in the 2016 spectrum auction. On that date, a full-market widescreen standard definition simulcast of WMLW's main signal was added to WDJT-DT3.

Brookfield-based Shorewest Realtors created Shorewest TV in October 2005, as an offshoot of earlier local cable shopping channels that often featured their listings along with those of other agencies, as digital cable and video on demand became commonplace and allowed Shorewest the ability to buy their own channel slot on Time Warner Cable.

In the form of the cable channel, basic pictorial tours of local homes and real estate classified by region or house types were presented using information compiled on a database used by both the channel and Shorewest's website, with narration given by agents encouraging viewers to call for more information on the property presented, along with limited advertising for partner contractors and programs from local homebuilders and mortgage providers. The VOD version of Shorewest TV (except for homes in Rock County, which is outside the Milwaukee viewing area) was discontinued with the launch of 58.4 in order to encourage viewership of the over-the-air channel and a common schedule allowing easy DVR recording of a regional block. Independent agencies affiliated with Shorewest (such as Sheboygan's Shorewest-United Realtors) continued to maintain a presence on their local VOD systems.

On October 13, 2009, Shorewest and Weigel Broadcasting launched Shorewest TV over digital channel 58.4 under a time-lease arrangement in order to increase Shorewest TV's audience throughout southeastern Wisconsin. Charter Communications, which already carried the video-on-demand version of the service, also added the subchannel in this form to its systems. As is the current case with many digital subchannels (including This TV and others in the Milwaukee area), the channel was not carried over Dish Network or DirecTV.

The format of Shorewest TV remained the same over-the-air, although to address license concerns regular breaks featuring public service announcements were taken (intermixed with promos for Weigel's Milwaukee stations), while Shorewest TV carried the E/I-compliant program "Green Screen Adventures", which was produced by WCIU, seven days a week at 7 a.m. In the past, Shorewest TV was moved to WBME-DT2 during NCAA multicasting periods to address multicasting bandwidth concerns and does see quality reductions at some times to allow WDJT to devote more bandwidth to certain CBS programming. Since July 2010, some paid programming slots were offered throughout the day over 58.4, usually at times where main channels had more viewership, and not for more than a half-hour every few hours.

At 5 a.m. on July 1, 2013, Shorewest TV ended as the time lease by the agency ended for the channel space in order to focus on Shorewest.TV, a new venture which features on-demand viewing of properties by location, price range and building type. In its place, WDJT-DT4 launched TouchVision, a national network which launched in beta form on the station with a national rollout beginning as Weigel prepared to transfer its interest in This TV, and is programmed from Weigel's Halsted Street studios with a separate LLC under the management of former radio and Tribune executive Lee Abrams, the network provides a looping presentation in widescreen of world and national news through pictures and video, mainly adapted from wire services, along with other information such as local weather and sports score cut-ins and several original feature segments. A three-minute automated weather segment featuring a loop of mapping and forecasts from the station's weather computers and skycam network, or a three-minute local news capsule alternate at the bottom of the hour.

On January 12, 2015, the station stopped carrying TouchVision on WDJT-DT4 and began to carry Heroes & Icons temporarily; Touchvision would remain carried as an hour every morning in the market on WMLW and nationally on H&I, but was discontinued with little notice on January 14, 2016. The next day, Weigel Broadcasting announced that WDJT-DT4 would be among the charter stations that would carry the "soft launch" block of marathon programming for the four months leading up to the May 25 launch of Weigel and CBS's joint venture network Decades, which has most of its carriage through CBS-owned stations. The soft launch began at midnight on January 16 with a binge marathon of "The Millionaire".

Decades moved to WBME-CD2 on January 8, 2018, as part of a wide-ranging number of moves involving the sale of the WMLW spectrum to the FCC in the 2016 spectrum auction, and their channel merger onto WBME's spectrum. On that date, the full-market simulcast of WYTU-LD and the Telemundo schedule was moved to WDJT-DT4 from its former berth on WMLW-DT4.

WDJT-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 58, at 11:59 p.m. on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 46. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 58, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition. On-air, the station identifies as WDJT-DT (for digital television) in station identifications despite holding the "-TV" suffix in its FCC correspondence.

After its analog signal was shut down, WDJT began to relay its programming schedule over sister station WYTU-LP (channel 63) at 9 a.m. that day; Telemundo programming ran exclusively over WYTU-LP's digital signal on channel 17 and on WMLW digital subchannel 49.4 from then on. This was to provide some kind of "lifeline" service under special dispensation by the CBS network to those who had not yet made the conversion. On December 31, 2009, the simulcast on channel 63 was discontinued at the end of the dispensation, and WYTU-LP was converted to an analog translator of WBME's main schedule.

Syndicated programming on WDJT includes "Inside Edition", "Jeopardy!", "Wheel of Fortune" and "Dr. Phil", along with "Madam Secretary" and "" on weekends, all distributed by CBS Television Distribution.

Weigel's Milwaukee news operation, branded as the "CBS 58 News", presently broadcasts 30½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5½ on weekdays, 1½ hours on Saturdays, and 2½ hours on Sundays) across WDJT itself (which carries 28½ hours itself) and sister station WMLW (carriage of eight hours per week, with three hours on weekends simulcast with WDJT), the lowest newscast output out of Milwaukee's Big Four network affiliates (in contrast, WITI offers 51 hours, WTMJ offers 40½ hours and WISN offers 31½ hours of news each week). In addition, WDJT produces the public affairs program "Eye to Eye" (which airs Sunday mornings) as well as a nightly local 10 p.m. Spanish-language evening newscasts for co-owned Telemundo affiliate WYTU-LD; several of WDJT's reporters are bilingual and present news stories for both stations, and Telemundo anchor Carlos Vergara anchored as a substitute on WDJT's newscasts in the past. The 10 p.m. newscast is rebroadcast overnights on WBME-CD to meet the station's Class A license local programming requirements and allow a 10 p.m. news encore in some form. WDJT also produces a nightly weather forecast segment using its meteorologists for its Chicago sister station (and Weigel flagship) WCIU-TV. As of the 2017 season, the station provides a pre-game news segment, and pre-game and post-game "ride home" weather segments for the Milwaukee Brewers, which are carried on the scoreboard at Miller Park (along with a logo placement on the bottom left-hand corner of the scoreboard at all times).

The station also gathered most news for CBS Radio in Milwaukee until the start of 2016 (WTMJ Radio now currently holds a dual CBS Radio/ABC Radio News affiliation and also provides coverage to CBS Radio), due to the lack of any area radio station airing the network's hourly newscasts (which were broadcast by WOKY, which does not have a news division, until a September 2008 format change); it also has a forecast and advertising agreement with the stations of the Milwaukee Radio Alliance, which include WLDB (93.3 FM), WLUM-FM (102.1 FM) and WZTI (1290 AM). WDJT maintains a traffic car where a photojournalist with a 3G connection back to the studios with a dashboard camera (branded by the station as iCAM) traverses the area's freeway system where possible each morning and on some evenings to report current traffic conditions or nearby breaking news, in lieu of a news helicopter.

WDJT's newscasts have fared somewhat better than those of other former independents and Fox stations that joined a Big Three network through the 1994–96 affiliation switches. This is remarkable considering the station barely registered in the ratings prior to joining CBS and did not even have a news department for over a year after aligning with the network. Indeed, the only other such stations who've had success in starting up a news department have either been owned by E. W. Scripps Company (KNXV-TV in Phoenix, WFTS-TV in Tampa, and KSHB-TV in Kansas City) or, in the case of Raycom Media-owned WOIO in Cleveland, going to a controversial tabloid format in order to garner ratings. (WOIO has since switched to a traditional format.) While it has spent the last two decades in fourth place, in recent years its news ratings at 10 p.m. have come close to (and at times surpassed) WITI, WTMJ and WISN-TV on some nights (especially during past carriage disputes between Time Warner Cable, Hearst Television and Journal Communications, that resulted in weeks long removal of WISN and WTMJ). Reporter/anchor Mike Strehlow has been with the station since the news department was launched, with former anchor Paul Piaskoski staying with the station 19 years until his mid-2015 departure. Unlike the situation in Atlanta with WGCL-TV, which has gone through multiple shifts in personnel on both sides of the camera, most staff turnover at WDJT has been of the traditional move of talent to higher markets, which is to be expected given Milwaukee's status as a mid-major market and its close proximity to Chicago.

When the station's news department began in January 1996, WDJT carried newscasts at 5 p.m. Monday through Saturdays, 5:30 p.m. on Sundays, 6 p.m. weeknights and at 10 p.m. seven nights a week. Unlike most CBS affiliates, WDJT does not have a weeknight 6 p.m. newscast; the station carried a newscast in that timeslot from the news department's launch until it aired "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in the slot from its September 2003 launch, and continued to do so when "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!" moved to WDJT in September 2005, when the station chose to air both shows during that hour. Although this is unusual scheduling in the Central Time Zone due to the reduction of one hour from early primetime, it is the common default scheduling for stations in the Eastern and Pacific time zones (Green Bay Fox affiliate WLUK-TV also carries both shows in the 6 p.m. hour). WDJT is also currently the market's only Big Four affiliate without a newscast on weekend mornings, since WITI reinstated the weekend edition of its "WakeUp News" broadcast in April 2011 after a two-year suspension (local weather inserts are taped after the Friday and Saturday 10 p.m. news for broadcast during the Saturday edition of "CBS This Morning" and "CBS News Sunday Morning", except during ongoing severe weather events). The station opted to fill the noon half-hour with a lower-profile syndicated show from the debut of its news operation until it launched a noon newscast on September 12, 2011.

The station used the "Ten at Ten" format for its late newscast until November 2014, emphasizing the top stories and weather in the first 10 minutes of the program. WDJT has won regional Emmy awards, along with honors from the Associated Press for best newscast presentation. In 2009, the station began to carry the syndicated Mr. Food cooking segments on its morning newscast (the segments had not been seen in the Milwaukee market since WITI had dropped it in 2006). During the 2007 World Series, WDJT produced a 9 p.m. newscast for WMLW-CA, in an attempt to attract non-baseball viewers who would normally watch WITI's newscast in that timeslot, which was subjected to delays because of the games. The 9 p.m. newscast on WMLW became a full-time program on January 1, 2008. On January 18, 2015, the 9 p.m. newscast was expanded to a full hour nightly.

The station formerly produced an 11-minute late evening newscast for ABC-affiliated South Bend sister station WBND-LP called "News at 11:00", featuring video shot locally in South Bend and then edited and written by anchor Michele McCormack and executive producer Adam Wilhelm in Milwaukee (WBND launched its own in-house news department in April 2011, though the imaging and format for its newscasts is very similar to WDJT's).

On July 25, 2011 (after a two-day test by WYTU's news segments the week before), the station's news department moved to a newly built extension of the Weigel facility, including a new set and fully equipped weather center optimized for HD broadcasts. The station became the fourth (and last) television station in Milwaukee to begin broadcasting its newscasts in high definition on January 8, 2012 at 10 p.m. after a one-day news hiatus for technical work (WDJT originally planned to upgrade in mid-September 2011, but that target was not met as the station installed its new master control and graphics software by December 9, then acquiring the HD field equipment; the WMLW and WYTU programs switched to HD in August 2012); some field video and national satellite stories continue to be presented in standard definition. In the spring of 2013, WDJT-TV also launched a network of four skycams through a sponsorship agreement with Aurora Health Care's St. Luke's Hospital (located respectively at the station's West Allis studios, on the Lincoln Park transmitter tower, atop St. Luke's, and at local furniture superstore Steinhafels on Waukesha's northeast side). Though it was the last in the market with a camera network, its system is the first to record live video in native widescreen without the need to stretch or crop the picture to fit the 16:9 frame. On September 23, 2013, WDJT expanded its weekday morning newscast a half-hour early to 4:30 a.m., extending the program to 2½ hours, resulting in Weigel's syndicated financial news program "First Business" being moved to WMLW for its last year on the air. As of September 2014, WDJT's weekend 5 p.m. hour newscasts now air on WMLW if they are pre-empted due to CBS Sports coverage, or are simulcasted even if no sports event is scheduled by CBS Sports.

At the start of April 2015, WDJT began to further expand their newscasts with the cancellation of "The Queen Latifah Show" at 3 p.m. months earlier. As of March 30, an hour-long 4 p.m. newshour began to air on the station on weekdays with a focus on in-studio interviews with local newsmakers, with "Dr. Phil" moving to 3 p.m. WDJT also expanded their newscasts to weekend mornings for the first time, starting with an hour-long newscast on Sunday mornings preceding "CBS News Sunday Morning" beginning April 5, which shares that program's template of long-form light reporting and features in local form, though is pre-recorded for air; the traditional 7 a.m. programming, including "Eye to Eye" and local time-lease religious program "Time of Grace", moved to other timeslots through the weekend. CBS 58 Sunday Morning is hosted by Mike Strehlow. Andrew T. Levinson is the executive producer.

On December 11, 1994, WDJT became the sixth station in Milwaukee to carry CBS. The network first aligned with WTMJ from 1947 to 1953, followed by now-defunct WCAN-TV (channel 25) from 1953 to 1955, WVTV (then known as WXIX) from 1955 to 1959, WITI from 1959 to 1961, WISN-TV from 1961 to 1977, and WITI again from 1977 to 1994. The first CBS program to air on channel 58 that day was "CBS News Sunday Morning". Some existing syndicated programming on WDJT's schedule which would otherwise air in CBS-designated timeslots was either moved to overnight slots on the station or turned over to sister station W65BT (now WBME-CD, channel 41) to fulfill contracts.

WDJT-TV

WDJT-TV, virtual channel 58 (UHF digital channel 46), is a CBS-affiliated television station licensed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. Owned by Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting, it is a sister station to Class A MeTV owned-and-operated station WBME-CD (channel 41), Racine-licensed independent station WMLW-TV (channel 49, which shares spectrum with WBME-CD), and low-powered Telemundo affiliate WYTU-LD (channel 63), which WDJT simulcasts in widescreen standard definition on its respective second, third and fourth digital subchannels to expand their reach across southeastern Wisconsin. All four stations share studios on South 60th Street in Milwaukee (near West Allis); WDJT's transmitter is located in Milwaukee's Lincoln Park (next to the transmitter belonging to ABC affiliate WISN-TV, channel 12).

On cable, WDJT-TV is carried on Charter Spectrum and AT&T U-verse channel 5 (channel 9 in Sheboygan and Fond du Lac, and on channel 8 on some systems), with the station's HD signal on Spectrum digital channel 1005 (channel 605 on legacy Charter systems), and on U-verse digital channel 1005.

In January and February 1992, WDJT carried full-day coverage of the criminal trial of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer fed and produced by WITI (channel 6). This allowed WITI to carry the CBS lineup without pre-emption, while giving Milwaukee an over-the-air venue for the trial.

Until 1993, many area cable systems chose not to carry it due to a lack of compelling programming, poor signal quality or inadequate viewership—most notably Marcus Cable (now part of Charter Communications), the largest cable provider in Milwaukee's outer suburbs. On the systems that did carry it, it was relegated to a lower-tier slot; it aired on channel 29 on Milwaukee's Time Warner Cable system, and on channel 48 in outlying areas.

Not even Weigel had expected WDJT to replace WITI as Milwaukee's CBS affiliate. For the next year and a half, channel 58 was thus forced to make do with a hastily made logo of WDJT's italic Times New Roman '58' of the time in red (and later yellow) superimposed on the CBS Eye, and a bare-bones image campaign using default CBS graphics. Meanwhile, the station began searching for a new studio befitting its new status, as well as building a news department. Until the 2009 digital television transition, WDJT was the only CBS affiliate in Wisconsin that broadcast on the UHF band, but retains the highest PSIP channel number out of the state's CBS affiliates post-transition.

It eventually acquired a near-universal channel 5 cable slot on most area systems, but several complications (including systems which didn't carry it on cable channel 5) disallowed WDJT from utilizing an alternate "CBS 5" branding, including likely confusion with then-CBS O&O WFRV-TV in Green Bay, which broadcasts on channel 5.

In 2007, WDJT gained national attention after its live news truck broke through ice on Big Muskego Lake in Muskego while covering a story on ice safety. The estimated cost of repair was $250,000. A week later, the station began airing a public service announcement on ice safety which premiered during CBS' Super Bowl XLI coverage, making light of the situation by referring to their news department as providing "the most in-depth coverage in Milwaukee".

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
WDJT has, in the past, used a fourth and fifth digital subchannel for multicasting games during the early rounds of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament in mid-March. From 2008 to 2010, when CBS restricted stations to only one multicast, the station aired the additional game over WDJT-DT3 (in 2008 as MeTV, and 2009 and 2010 as This TV Milwaukee), and removed 58.4 from service. This multicasting of games was discontinued in 2011, due to CBS and the Turner Broadcasting System's TBS, TNT and TruTV sharing the broadcast rights to the tournament under a new broadcast contract that began that year. Digital subchannels 58.4 and 58.5 returned to use in May 2009 and were added permanently into channel maps on digital converter boxes and television sets for the possibility of future use.

Dish Network began carrying the station's high definition feed on October 28, 2010; the provider had not carried it until then as Weigel's retransmission consent pricing was higher than Dish would agree to (though what terms Dish came to Weigel are unknown). In June 2012, WDJT began to flag its standard definition presentation on 58.1 with the AFD #8 code, so SD viewers see the station's 16:9 picture in full on a 4:3 screen without letterboxing, thus causing some vertical stretching with that picture.

The station has carried a second audio program channel since the Lincoln Park transmitter went into service in 1999, both in the station's analog and digital forms, and provides all CBS programming available with DVS, along with NFL on CBS coverage featuring Spanish-language audio, regardless of FCC regulations over the years.

In June 2016, WDJT added a near full-time stream of the main signal for viewers in the Milwaukee market (outside of sports blackouts) as a part of CBS All Access, the network's paid over-the-top service.

WDJT was the originating station of Me-TV Milwaukee, which carried a lineup of classic television series modeled after the MeTV format introduced by Chicago sister station WWME-CA in 2005. It launched on March 1, 2008 on digital subchannel 58.3. In mid-April 2008, Weigel acquired Racine-licensed home shopping station WJJA (channel 49, now WMLW-TV), and immediately began moving MeTV programming to that station, changing the station's callsign to WBME-TV. The simulcast was maintained until October 30, 2008, after a new digital transmitter for WBME on the Weigel tower was turned on in mid-October.

On August 7, 2012, MeTV (in its national network form) returned to WDJT on channel 58.2, as WBME and WMLW-CA swapped their programming between the two stations' prior channel allocations to allow WMLW to air HD programming on a full-power signal; WMLW had been carried on 58.2 since 2004, both to provide a signal of that station receivable in the entire market and a quality feed of the station to local cable providers. In this form, the station carries most of the national feed of MeTV with some minor variations in non-critical hours for license maintenance concerns such as E/I programming, along with a late-night rebroadcast of WDJT's 9 p.m. newscast on WMLW.

On March 3, 2015, Weigel moved This TV to WMLW's third subchannel in order to consolidate their owned subchannel networks onto WDJT, and shuffled Heroes & Icons, which had launched on September 29, 2014 on WMLW-DT3 locally with a format of action, crime and western programming targeted towards men, to WDJT-DT3.

H&I moved to WMLW-DT3 on January 8, 2018, as part of a wide-ranging number of moves involving the sale of the WMLW spectrum to the FCC in the 2016 spectrum auction. On that date, a full-market widescreen standard definition simulcast of WMLW's main signal was added to WDJT-DT3.

Brookfield-based Shorewest Realtors created Shorewest TV in October 2005, as an offshoot of earlier local cable shopping channels that often featured their listings along with those of other agencies, as digital cable and video on demand became commonplace and allowed Shorewest the ability to buy their own channel slot on Time Warner Cable.

In the form of the cable channel, basic pictorial tours of local homes and real estate classified by region or house types were presented using information compiled on a database used by both the channel and Shorewest's website, with narration given by agents encouraging viewers to call for more information on the property presented, along with limited advertising for partner contractors and programs from local homebuilders and mortgage providers. The VOD version of Shorewest TV (except for homes in Rock County, which is outside the Milwaukee viewing area) was discontinued with the launch of 58.4 in order to encourage viewership of the over-the-air channel and a common schedule allowing easy DVR recording of a regional block. Independent agencies affiliated with Shorewest (such as Sheboygan's Shorewest-United Realtors) continued to maintain a presence on their local VOD systems.

On October 13, 2009, Shorewest and Weigel Broadcasting launched Shorewest TV over digital channel 58.4 under a time-lease arrangement in order to increase Shorewest TV's audience throughout southeastern Wisconsin. Charter Communications, which already carried the video-on-demand version of the service, also added the subchannel in this form to its systems. As is the current case with many digital subchannels (including This TV and others in the Milwaukee area), the channel was not carried over Dish Network or DirecTV.

The format of Shorewest TV remained the same over-the-air, although to address license concerns regular breaks featuring public service announcements were taken (intermixed with promos for Weigel's Milwaukee stations), while Shorewest TV carried the E/I-compliant program "Green Screen Adventures", which was produced by WCIU, seven days a week at 7 a.m. In the past, Shorewest TV was moved to WBME-DT2 during NCAA multicasting periods to address multicasting bandwidth concerns and does see quality reductions at some times to allow WDJT to devote more bandwidth to certain CBS programming. Since July 2010, some paid programming slots were offered throughout the day over 58.4, usually at times where main channels had more viewership, and not for more than a half-hour every few hours.

On January 12, 2015, the station stopped carrying TouchVision on WDJT-DT4 and began to carry Heroes & Icons temporarily; Touchvision would remain carried as an hour every morning in the market on WMLW and nationally on H&I, but was discontinued with little notice on January 14, 2016. The next day, Weigel Broadcasting announced that WDJT-DT4 would be among the charter stations that would carry the "soft launch" block of marathon programming for the four months leading up to the May 25 launch of Weigel and CBS's joint venture network Decades, which has most of its carriage through CBS-owned stations. The soft launch began at midnight on January 16 with a binge marathon of "The Millionaire".

Decades moved to WBME-CD2 on January 8, 2018, as part of a wide-ranging number of moves involving the sale of the WMLW spectrum to the FCC in the 2016 spectrum auction, and their channel merger onto WBME's spectrum. On that date, the full-market simulcast of WYTU-LD and the Telemundo schedule was moved to WDJT-DT4 from its former berth on WMLW-DT4.

WDJT-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 58, at 11:59 p.m. on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 46. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 58, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition. On-air, the station identifies as WDJT-DT (for digital television) in station identifications despite holding the "-TV" suffix in its FCC correspondence.

After its analog signal was shut down, WDJT began to relay its programming schedule over sister station WYTU-LP (channel 63) at 9 a.m. that day; Telemundo programming ran exclusively over WYTU-LP's digital signal on channel 17 and on WMLW digital subchannel 49.4 from then on. This was to provide some kind of "lifeline" service under special dispensation by the CBS network to those who had not yet made the conversion. On December 31, 2009, the simulcast on channel 63 was discontinued at the end of the dispensation, and WYTU-LP was converted to an analog translator of WBME's main schedule.

Syndicated programming on WDJT includes "Inside Edition", "Jeopardy!", "Wheel of Fortune" and "Dr. Phil", along with "Madam Secretary" and "" on weekends, all distributed by CBS Television Distribution.

The station also gathered most news for CBS Radio in Milwaukee until the start of 2016 (WTMJ Radio now currently holds a dual CBS Radio/ABC Radio News affiliation and also provides coverage to CBS Radio), due to the lack of any area radio station airing the network's hourly newscasts (which were broadcast by WOKY, which does not have a news division, until a September 2008 format change); it also has a forecast and advertising agreement with the stations of the Milwaukee Radio Alliance, which include WLDB (93.3 FM), WLUM-FM (102.1 FM) and WZTI (1290 AM). WDJT maintains a traffic car where a photojournalist with a 3G connection back to the studios with a dashboard camera (branded by the station as iCAM) traverses the area's freeway system where possible each morning and on some evenings to report current traffic conditions or nearby breaking news, in lieu of a news helicopter.

The station used the "Ten at Ten" format for its late newscast until November 2014, emphasizing the top stories and weather in the first 10 minutes of the program. WDJT has won regional Emmy awards, along with honors from the Associated Press for best newscast presentation. In 2009, the station began to carry the syndicated Mr. Food cooking segments on its morning newscast (the segments had not been seen in the Milwaukee market since WITI had dropped it in 2006). During the 2007 World Series, WDJT produced a 9 p.m. newscast for WMLW-CA, in an attempt to attract non-baseball viewers who would normally watch WITI's newscast in that timeslot, which was subjected to delays because of the games. The 9 p.m. newscast on WMLW became a full-time program on January 1, 2008. On January 18, 2015, the 9 p.m. newscast was expanded to a full hour nightly.

The station formerly produced an 11-minute late evening newscast for ABC-affiliated South Bend sister station WBND-LP called "News at 11:00", featuring video shot locally in South Bend and then edited and written by anchor Michele McCormack and executive producer Adam Wilhelm in Milwaukee (WBND launched its own in-house news department in April 2011, though the imaging and format for its newscasts is very similar to WDJT's).

On October 21, 2014, CBS and Weigel Broadcasting announced the launch of a new digital subchannel service called Decades, scheduled to launch on all CBS-owned stations on May 25, 2015, including on WCBS-TV on channel 2.2. The channel is co-owned by CBS and Weigel (owner of CBS affiliate WDJT-TV in Milwaukee), with Weigel being responsible for distribution to non-CBS-owned stations. It airs programs from the extensive library of CBS Television Distribution, including archival footage from CBS News. On September 3, 2018, Decades was replaced on 2.2 by Start TV.

WCBS-TV

WCBS-TV, channel 2, is the flagship station of the CBS television network, licensed to New York City. WCBS-TV is owned by the CBS Television Stations division of CBS Corporation, and operates as part of a television duopoly with Riverhead, New York-licensed independent station WLNY-TV (channel 55). WCBS-TV's studios are located within the CBS Broadcast Center and its transmitter is located at One World Trade Center in Manhattan.

In the few areas of the eastern United States where a CBS station is not receivable over-the-air, WCBS is available on Satellite television via DirecTV.

WCBS-TV's history dates back to CBS' opening of experimental station W2XAB on July 21, 1931, using the mechanical television system that had been more-or-less perfected in the late 1920s. Its first broadcast featured New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, Kate Smith, and George Gershwin. The station had the first regular seven-day broadcasting schedule in American television, broadcasting 28 hours a week. Among its early programming included "The Television Ghost" (1931–1933), "Helen Haynes" (1931–1932) and "Piano Lessons" (1931–1932).

Announcer-director Bill Schudt was the station's only paid employee; all other staff were volunteers. W2XAB pioneered program development including small-scale dramatic acts, monologues, pantomime, and the use of projection slides to simulate sets. Engineer Bill Lodge devised the first synchronized sound wave for a television station in 1932, enabling W2XAB to broadcast picture and sound on a single shortwave channel instead of the two previously needed. On November 8, 1932, W2XAB broadcast the first television coverage of presidential election returns. The station suspended operations on February 20, 1933, as monochrome television transmission standards were in flux, and in the process of changing from a mechanical to an all-electronic system. W2XAB returned with an all-electronic system in 1939 from a new studio complex in Grand Central Station and a transmitter located at the Chrysler Building broadcasting on channel 2. W2XAB transmitted the first color broadcast in the United States on August 28, 1940.

On June 24, 1941, W2XAB received a commercial construction permit and program authorization as WCBW. The station went on the air at 2:30 p.m. on July 1, one hour after rival WNBT (channel 1, formerly W2XBS), making it the second authorized fully commercial television station in the United States. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued permits to CBS and NBC at the same time and intended WNBT and WCBW to sign on simultaneously on July 1, so no one station could claim to be the "first". WCBW's initial broadcast was the first local newscast aired on a commercial station in the country. Its assigned frequency was 60–66 MHz, now known as channel 3 but then referred to as Channel 2 in the 1940–46 alignment of the VHF band.

Program schedules were irregular through the summer and early fall of 1941. Regular daily operations began on October 29 and WCBW received a full Broadcast license, its construction permit and commercial program authorization on March 10, 1942. After the war, the FCC re-allocated the television and FM bands. WCBW closed down its operation on the old channel 2 at the end of February 1946 (the 60–66 MHz band had been re-allocated to WPTZ in Philadelphia as channel 3) in order to move to a new channel 2 at 54–60 MHz. It quickly began operation on the new frequency, where it remained from the spring of 1946 until the end of analog full power television service in the late spring of 2009.

The call letters were changed to WCBS-TV on November 1, 1946, after the FCC allowed television stations owned by radio stations in the same city to use the same call letters as the radio station with the suffix "-TV" – it is the only station in the CBS-owned television station to have been built from the ground up by the network.

On February 26, 1951, WCBS-TV became the first station to broadcast a regularly scheduled feature film series, "The Late Show". On August 11, 1951, WCBS-TV broadcast the first baseball game on color television, between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves from Ebbets Field. As were all color programs at the time, it was transmitted via a field-sequential color system developed by CBS. Signals transmitted this way could not be seen on existing black-and-white sets. The CBS color system was scrapped after the FCC embraced the alternative RCA all-electronic dot sequential system, which was fully compatible with the existing monochrome television standard, late in 1953. However, CBS telecast few programs in color, either locally or on the network, until the mid-1960s when color receivers began to grow in popularity.

In May 1997, the station adopted the "CBS 2" branding, along with sister stations KCBS-TV in Los Angeles and WBBM-TV in Chicago, while retaining a unique and distinctive logo. The practice of CBS-owned stations placing the network identity ahead of their local identity would end up being known as the "Viacom Mandate" (later the "CBS Mandate").

WCBS-TV's over-the air signal was not affected by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center. Unlike its competitors, channel 2 had long maintained a full-powered backup transmitter at the Empire State Building after moving its main transmitter to the North Tower of the then-new World Trade Center in 1975. The station's coverage of the attacks was also simulcast nationally on Viacom (which owned CBS at the time) cable network VH1 that day. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, WCBS-TV was briefly the only full-coverage over-the-air television service operating in New York City, although the station lent transmission time to other stations who had lost their transmitters until they found suitable backup equipment and locations. The backup transmitter had been put into operation once before, when the World Trade Center bombing of February 26, 1993 knocked most of the area's stations off the air for a week.

On December 12, 2011, CBS Television Stations announced its intent to purchase Riverhead, Long Island-licensed WLNY-TV (channel 55), later announced for a purchase price of $55 million, creating a duopoly with WCBS-TV. The company announced that it would add additional on-air staff and expand WLNY's local news programming (at the time, that station had only an 11 p.m. newscast). The FCC approved the sale on January 31, 2012, and CBS took control of the station on March 30. WLNY suspended its own news operations the previous day and began airing WCBS-TV produced newscasts on July 2, 2012.

On May 9, 2017, it was announced that WCBS-TV would return to broadcasting from the top of the World Trade Center at One World Trade Center by the end of the year.

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
Digital subchannel 2.2, branded as "CBS New York Plus", was launched in November 2011 as a 24-hour news channel drawing upon the resources of WCBS-TV, WCBS radio (880 AM), WINS (1010 AM), and WFAN-AM-FM (660 AM and 101.9 FM). The Plus service was eventually planned to be rolled out to CBS' other owned-and-operated stations, but only WCBS and KYW-TV in Philadelphia added Plus channel services.

WCBS-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, at 2 p.m. on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station moved its digital signal from its pre-transition UHF channel 56, which was among the high band UHF channels (52–69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to channel 33, using PSIP to display WCBS-TV's virtual channel as 2 on digital television receivers. Since the station qualified for the nightlight clause in the DTV Delay Act, WCBS kept its analog signal on for one month to provide public service announcements, starting on 3 p.m. on June 12 and permanently shutting it down during the early morning hours of July 13, 2009; this possibly made it the last full power NTSC broadcast television station in the United States to discontinue analog transmissions.

WCBS-TV currently has a construction permit for a digital fill-in translator on channel 22 in Plainview, Long Island, which will serve portions of eastern and central Long Island where WCBS-TV's signal is affected by the presence of WFSB, a CBS affiliate in Hartford, Connecticut which also broadcasts on channel 33.

On December 12, 2018 WCBS-TV in cooperation with CBS Interactive launched CBSN New York - a local version the CBSN service. CBSN New York can be accessed from CBSNewYork.com and its mobile apps, CBSNews.com and its mobile apps and the Apple TV, Fire TV and Roku streaming boxes.

WCBS-TV serves as the flagship station for the following shows: "Hot Bench", "Judge Judy", "Inside Edition", and "Entertainment Tonight".

In 2002, WCBS-TV acquired free to air rights to the New York Yankees baseball games, assumed from Fox owned-and-operated station WNYW after the 2001 season, the games were produced by the new YES Network from its launch until the 2004 season, when the free to air rights of Yankees baseball games moved to UPN affiliated (now MyNetwork TV owned-and-operated) station WWOR-TV beginning with the 2005 season.

From 1956 until 1993, WCBS-TV carried most New York Giants games, this was due to the network's primary rights of the National Football Conference (NFC), but in 1994, when the NFC and the Giants games was moved to Fox (and, as a result, WNYW); currently, the Giants preseason games are carried by NBC owned-and-operated station WNBC (with WWOR-TV being served as an overflow Station if the Summer Olympics conflicts the preseason schedule). Additionally, the team airs an occasional Giants game, usually when the team plays host to an AFC opponent at MetLife Stadium (or, since 2014, through the 'cross-flex' broadcast rules, any Giants games where they play another NFC team that are passed up by WNYW). After its 5-year absence, The NFL returned to CBS and WCBS-TV in 1998 by acquiring the rights of the American Football Conference (AFC) and the station currently airs New York Jets preseason games and most regular season games, During the regular season some Jets games are rotated with WNBC (through "NBC Sunday Night Football"), WNYW (through "NFL on Fox" and "Thursday Night Football"), WABC-TV (through "Monday Night Football"), WPIX (through "Monday Night Football" (if WABC-TV is not airing them) and select TNF telecasts not carried by Fox's package it shares with NFL Network), and at rare cases, WWOR-TV (through "Monday Night Football").

WCBS-TV presently broadcasts 33 hours, 5 minutes of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5 hours, 5 minutes on weekdays, 3 hours, 5 minutes on Saturdays and 4 hours, 35 minutes on Sundays). Like other CBS-owned stations, WCBS-TV offers a web only newscast called "CBS 2 at Your Desk", available weekdays at 9 a.m. Also, available are streamlined editions of the noon, 5 and 6, and the 11 p.m. newscasts. There is also a "LoHud Report" edition of "At Your Desk", operated by WCBS-TV and LoHud.com, the website for "The Journal News", a Gannett Company-owned newspaper covering the lower Hudson Valley. "The Journal News" has a partnership with the station where WCBS-TV uses the newspaper's offices for its Westchester Bureau, and "The Journal News" gets a 30-second promotion during the 6 p.m. newscast for the next day's top story.

WCBS-TV cooperates with sister station KYW-TV in Philadelphia in the production and broadcast of statewide New Jersey political debates. When the two stations broadcast a statewide office debate, such as for Governor or United States Senate, they will pool resources and have anchors or reporters from both stations participate in the debate. Additionally, the two stations cooperate in the gathering of news in New Jersey where their markets overlap; sharing reporters, live trucks and helicopters.

Upon becoming commercial station WCBW in 1941, the station broadcast two daily news programs, at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. weekdays, anchored by Richard Hubbell. Most of the newscasts featured Hubbell reading a script with only occasional cutaways to a map or still photograph. When Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, WCBW (which was usually off the air on Sunday to give the engineers a day off), took to the air at 8:45 p.m. that Sunday with an extensive special report. The national emergency even broke down the unspoken wall between CBS radio and television. WCBW executives convinced radio announcers and experts such as George Fielding Elliot and Linton Wells to come down to the Grand Central Station studios during the evening and give information and commentary on the attack. The WCBW special report that night lasted less than 90 minutes. But that special broadcast pushed the limits of live television in 1941 and opened up new possibilities for future broadcasts. As CBS wrote in a special report to the FCC, the unscheduled live news broadcast on December 7 “was unquestionably the most stimulating challenge and marked the greatest advance of any single problem faced up to that time.” Additional newscasts were scheduled in the early days of the war. In May 1942, WCBW (like almost all television stations) sharply cut back its live program schedule and the newscasts were cancelled, since the station temporarily suspended studio operations, resorting exclusively to the occasional broadcast of films. This was primarily due to the fact that much of the staff had either joined the service or were redeployed to war-related technical research, and to prolong the life of the early, unstable cameras which were now impossible to repair due to the wartime lack of parts.

In May 1944, as the war began to turn in favor of the Allies, WCBW reopened the studios and the newscasts returned, briefly anchored by Ned Calmer, and then by Everett Holles. After the war, expanded news programs appeared on the WCBW schedule—renamed WCBS-TV in 1946—first anchored by Milo Boulton, and later by Douglas Edwards. On May 3, 1948, Douglas Edwards began anchoring "CBS Television News", a regular 15-minute nightly newscast on the rudimentary CBS network, including WCBS-TV. It aired every weeknight at 7:30 p.m., and was the first regularly scheduled, network television news program featuring an anchor (the nightly Lowell Thomas NBC radio network newscast was simulcast on television locally on NBC's WNBT (channel 4, now WNBC) for a time in the early 1940s, and Richard Hubbell, Ned Calmer, Everett Holles and Milo Boulton on WCBW in the early and mid-1940s, but these were local television broadcasts seen only in New York City). The NBC television network's offering at the time "NBC Television Newsreel" (premiering in February 1948) was simply film with voice narration. In 1950, the name of the nightly news was changed to "Douglas Edwards with the News", and the following year, it became the first news program to be broadcast on both coasts, thanks to a new coaxial cable connection, prompting Edwards to use the greeting "Good evening everyone, coast to coast." The broadcast was renamed the "CBS Evening News" when Walter Cronkite replaced Edwards in 1962. Edwards remained with CBS News with various daytime television newscasts and radio news broadcasts until his retirement on April 1, 1988.

In the 1950s through the mid-1960s, WCBS-TV's local newscasts were anchored by CBS News correspondents Robert Trout (at 7pm) and Douglas Edwards (at 11pm). Prior to 1965, local news broadcasts on WCBS-TV and other CBS-owned television stations were produced by CBS News. At this time, the stations took over the local news broadcasts. Trout and Edwards were succeeded by Jim Jensen. Jensen had only come to WCBS-TV a year earlier (he had been at WBZ-TV in Boston), but was already well known for his coverage of Robert F. Kennedy's 1964 campaign for the United States Senate. During the 1960s, WCBS-TV battled WNBC-TV (channel 4) for the top-rated news department in New York City. After WABC-TV (channel 7) introduced "Eyewitness News" in the late 1960s, WCBS-TV went back and forth in first place with Channel 7, in a rivalry that continued through the 1970s. For much of the early 1980s, New York's "Big Three" stations took turns in the top spot. During this time, three of the longest-tenured anchor teams in New York – Jensen and Rolland Smith, WABC-TV's Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel, and WNBC-TV's Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons – went head-to-head with each other.

WCBS-TV had many well-known personalities during this era: anchors Dave Marash, Rolland Smith, Michele Marsh and Vic Miles; meteorologists Dr. Frank Field and John Coleman; reporters Meredith Vieira, Randall Pinkston, Tony Guida, John Stossel and Arnold Diaz and sportscaster Warner Wolf. Vieira, Pinkston and Guida later moved to the CBS network. Vieira later moved to NBC where she co-hosted the morning show "Today" until leaving and being replaced with Ann Curry.

In 1987, WABC-TV surged to first place. As the 1990s began, Channel 2 found itself increasingly losing its ratings share to WNBC. One of management's more controversial responses was to take Jensen off the anchor desk in late 1994 and demote him to host of a Sunday morning public-affairs show, "Sunday Edition". He also hosted a few episodes of the regular "Sports Update" show on Sunday nights at 11:30 p.m. At the time, Jensen had served as an anchor longer than anyone in New York television history (he has since been passed by WABC-TV's Beutel and WNBC's Scarborough). The move was roundly criticized by many in New York, especially since WCBS-TV had supported him after he went into drug rehabilitation in 1988. Another controversy involved an exchange between Jensen and co-anchor Bree Walker, whose fingers and toes are fused together as a result of the condition ectrodactyly. After Walker did a report about her experience with the condition, Jensen asked Walker, on the air, if her parents would have aborted her had they known she would have been born with the condition. Walker kept her composure on air but soon left the station.

The incident took place shortly before Jensen's entry to drug rehabilitation. Station management came under more fire in 1995 when Jensen was forced to retire shortly after the Westinghouse Electric Corporation announced it was buying CBS. By the end of 1995, Channel 2 had crashed into last place for the first time in its history while WNBC surged to a strong second place – a pecking order that would remain in place for eleven years. The station's news branding change from "Channel 2 News" to just "2 News" during that time contributed to the station's last-place finish in the February 1996 sweeps period.

On October 2, 1996, the station executed an unprecedented mass firing without any advance warning, citing the need to shake up its news operation. Seven people were fired: anchors John Johnson, Michele Marsh and Tony Guida; sports anchor Bernie Smilovitz (who promptly returned to his previous station, WDIV in Detroit); and reporters Reggie Harris, Roseanne Colletti and Magee Hickey. The firings came after the 6 p.m. newscast. Johnson and Marsh had anchored the 5 p.m. newscasts and signed off at 6 p.m. saying, "We'll see you at 11," but never got a chance to say goodbye on the air.

The "massacre," as it has come to be known, was part of a move enacted by then-news director Bill Carey to boost ratings, although it came at a time when CBS was under pressure to boost revenues, having just merged with Westinghouse. It was also part of a major reconstruction of the newscast, culminating in the May 1997 rebranding to "News 2"; 2 months prior, Warner Wolf had returned to the station, having left in 1992 for WUSA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Washington.

When the "News 2" name was put in place, a format change was also instituted, going for a faster-paced newscast with more stories; this was reinforced by reminders that "News 2" had "More news in less time, everytime" and a "Rundown" of stories to come. After a year, little to no progress in the ratings was made, so this format was done away with; a new "Virtual studio" format, alongside bright, orange and white graphics and a "club" remix of WBBM-TV's "I Love Chicago, Chicago My Home" theme (which the station has used in various forms for all but a few years since 1982) was tried out. This did not work either, so this approach was junked, in favor of a more "traditional" newscast. The "club" remix of the WBBM theme would continue to be used until early 2000.

In 2000, Joel Cheatwood, creator of the "7 News" format at WSVN in Miami, was appointed as the station's news director. At his suggestion, the newscasts were rebranded from "News 2" to "the CBS 2 Information Network," using "content partners" such as "U.S. News & World Report" and VH1. He also gave the newscasts more of a tabloid feel. While considerably watered down compared to Bill Applegate's work at WBBM-TV in Chicago, John Lippmann's work at KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, Fox flagship WNYW, and Cheatwood's work at WSVN – and even compared to WSVN's sister station, WHDH in Boston—it was much flashier than had been seen on New York's "Big Three" affiliates. He also retooled the 11 p.m. report as a "gritty, down-to-earth" style newscast, termed "Nightcast". At this point, the station was sharing studio space with CBS Sports (having shared street-side studios with CBS' then-morning newscast, "The Early Show", as a part of its short-lived attempt at a newscast at 4 p.m., which they had attempted in the early 1990s). It also began usage of two different music packages from Edd Kalehoff (who had composed WNBC's "We're 4 New York" campaign and "NBC Stations" package that was in use at the time), one for the normal newscasts titled "WCBS Grand", which began alongside the debut of the 4PM news, and another package especially intended for "Nightcast". It did not work, and Cheatwood was gone by 2002 in favor of New York veteran news director Dianne Doctor. The station became simply "CBS 2", and gradually phased out the tabloid elements, the Information Network, and "Nightcast". In its place, Doctor introduced a "news for the people" approach similar to that of her previous employer, WNBC. The Kalehoff-produced themes were replaced with the John Hegner-produced "News in Focus" which sister KCBS had used starting in 1997 (and had replaced just days before WCBS adopted the package). Several pieces of "WCBS Grand" have since been recycled by Kalehoff as music cues on "The Price Is Right" under the title "Grandeur." The graphics and logo mainly became blue and silver, with that color motif remaining to this day (albeit with the addition of gold) with successive graphics packages, including the last several which have been shared with most of the other stations in the CBS O&O group.

After Doctor's arrival, WCBS placed a revived emphasis on hard news, while attempting to revive some elements of its glory days. For instance, in 2003 Arnold Diaz rejoined the station to revive "Shame on You", an Emmy Award-winning series of investigative segments. He had worked at the station from 1973 to 1995, leaving to serve a similar investigative role at ABC News. In December 2005, Diaz once again departed, this time leaving for WNYW. Another segment was "Eat at Your Own Risk", which highlighted unsafe conditions at New York-area restaurants. Ironically, the cafeteria at the CBS Broadcast Center was cited for violations by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Violations included the presence of rats and roaches, as well as food temperature issues.

Despite this and other attempts at fixes, the ratings did not significantly improve under Doctor's watch. Doctor was criticized for airing "Shame on You" and "Eat at Your Own Risk" segments ahead of major stories. She also came under fire when channel 2 led its 11 p.m. newscast of May 24, 2005, with a story and exclusive video of actor Burt Reynolds slapping a CBS producer, while rivals WABC-TV and WNBC-TV led with an important vote in the U.S. House on stem cell research.

On May 27, 2004, Doctor fired popular sports anchor Warner Wolf, three months before his contract expired, without giving Wolf a chance to say goodbye on air. This incident was widely panned by several newspapers, including the "New York Daily News", and the move alienated and angered many viewers. Wolf was replaced by the much younger Chris Wragge, who was brought in from NBC affiliate KPRC-TV in Houston. On June 1, 2005, Jim Rosenfield rejoined the station to anchor the 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts with Roz Abrams, who joined channel 2 the previous year after an 18-year run at WABC-TV. The son of a former CBS executive, Rosenfield had worked at the station from 1998 to 2000 before moving to WNBC (to anchor "Live at Five") after a contract dispute with channel 2. Rosenfield replaced Ernie Anastos, who moved to WNYW in July 2005.

On August 22, 2005, WCBS-TV launched its new Doppler weather radar named "Live Doppler 2 Million". It has one million watts of power, and is live, compared to other dopplers in the market which are delayed by about 15 minutes. "Live Doppler 2 Million" was the punch line of a joke on an episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and was ridiculed on the popular "Opie and Anthony" radio show. The station renamed the radar in 2006 to "Live Doppler". The station also uses the VIPIR radar processing software. Coincidentally, transportation reporter Arthur Chi'en was fired from the station three months earlier after mistakenly using expletives live on the air in response to someone from "Opie and Anthony" disrupting his live report as part of their "Assault on the Media" contest. On April 14, 2006, Dianne Doctor left WCBS-TV. The station decided to move its news department in a new direction under new general manager Peter Dunn, who axed "Shame on You" and "Eat at Your Own Risk". Doctor reportedly did not agree with the new plans, and opted to leave. The station has since overhauled its graphics and anchor lineup, winning praise from media observers.

In early September 2006, WCBS-TV's weather department entered into a partnership with The Weather Channel, with meteorologists from the cable channel often appearing on-air with existing WCBS-TV meteorologists. WCBS-TV also received information from the Weather Channel, in addition to using its radars and satellite imagery. The Weather Channel featured updates with WCBS for New York City's weather on its "Evening Edition" program with one of the WCBS meteorologists, and forecast intros on WCBS began with "now time for your exclusive forecast from CBS 2 and the Weather Channel." On July 7, 2008, this partnership ended when it was announced that the Weather Channel had been sold to NBCUniversal (owner of competitor WNBC).

On November 6, 2006, WCBS-TV made a personnel change on its noon and 5 p.m. newscasts. Former sports director and anchor Chris Wragge became co-anchor of both programs, along with newly hired Kristine Johnson; both replaced Roz Abrams and Mary Calvi on those newscasts; Abrams' contract was allowed to lapse, and Calvi was reassigned to weekends as the sole evening anchor. Calvi co-anchored on mornings with Rob Morrison. More changes came on December 25, 2006, as John Elliot was introduced as the new morning and noon meteorologist, replacing Audrey Puente, whose abrupt breach-of-contract demotion led to her being allowed to become the new chief meteorologist at WWOR-TV less than two weeks later. WCBS-TV also hired Lonnie Quinn, who had been a weatherman in Miami, as they phased out John Bolaris, who had rejoined WCBS in 2002. On June 25, 2007, Wragge and Johnson added the 11 p.m. newscast to their duties, trading places with Dana Tyler and Jim Rosenfield on the noon program; Tyler and Rosenfield continued to co-anchor the 6 p.m. newscast. Rosenfield left WCBS in May 2008 and was replaced with recently hired weekend anchor Don Dahler.

In the February 2007 ratings period, WCBS-TV finished second behind WABC-TV from sign-on to sign-off – its best showing in 16 years, although most of its newscasts still finished in third place at that time. By the November 2007 sweeps period, channel 2's local evening newscasts had overtaken WNBC for second place (mainly due to declining ratings at WNBC). It was channel 2's best news performance in 12 years, but it still trailed WABC-TV by a fairly wide margin. On April 11, 2007, WCBS-TV became the third New York City television station to begin broadcasting its newscasts in high-definition. In May 2008, WCBS led WNBC by an even wider margin. However, its longtime #1 noon newscast's ratings fell behind WABC, the only other station to offer a noon newscast in the New York area. WCBS has been unable to regain the lead at noon since, although they were still second in New York City among the market's evening broadcasts at the time.

WCBS elected to change the noon anchors again after approximately a year and put the noon broadcast in the hands of the morning news team; the then-current anchors were Maurice DuBois and Mary Calvi with John Elliott providing weather forecasts. DuBois has since switched to anchoring the weeknight 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts with Johnson (with Wragge moving to "The Early Show"; he later returned to anchor WCBS's 6 p.m. weekday broadcast with Dana Tyler) and is now partnered with Calvi weekday mornings and at noon.

In the February 2011 Nielsen sweeps period, WCBS-TV's 11 p.m. newscast unseated WABC-TV for first place in total households in that timeslot. WABC continued to lead in the key demographics at 11 p.m. WCBS-TV quickly lost its lead at 11 p.m. after WABC-TV regained its status as #1 at 11 p.m. in the May 2011 sweeps. WABC-TV has since kept its #1 status at 11 p.m. Recently, WCBS-TV has moved back to third place in ratings due to an increase in ratings at WNBC-TV.

On September 29, 2011 WCBS-TV moved into a temporary set after the final newscast in the set they had been using for 10 years. The final newscast used in the temporary set was on October 20, 2011 for "CBS 2 News This Morning", on October 20, 2011, WCBS-TV debuted a new set on its noon newscast. The modernized set features a projection screen which changes backgrounds for each newscast (morning, noon and night) behind the anchors with blurred glass panels on both sides and the weather center includes additional blurring panels, plenty of monitors, an L-shaped desk and dimensional letter along the top of the set.

On September 22, 2013 on the late newscast following Emmy Awards, WCBS introduced the new look for its newscasts. This included a new logo with a gold "2" that had been seen in promos for months, new opens and an updated version of Enforcer. The former look was used one last time earlier that day during "CBS 2 News Sunday Morning."

On April 22, 2016, after nineteen years, WCBS-TV changed its logo which features a new numeric "2" in the same font used by sister stations WBBM-TV (Chicago), KCBS-TV (Los Angeles) and KDKA-TV (Pittsburgh). The logo was introduced along with an updated graphics package that was introduced on the edition of April 21, 2016 of "CBS 2 News at Noon".

On March 1, 2008, Weigel expanded the MeTV format to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it began airing on the third digital subchannel of the group's CBS affiliate in that market, WDJT-TV (channel 58). The Milwaukee version of the service featured much of the same programming as that aired on the Chicago outlets (some of which aired in different time slots than on WWME and WMEU), as well as certain programs that were exclusive to the Milwaukee service.

MeTV

MeTV (an abbreviation for Memorable Entertainment Television) is an American broadcast television network that is owned by Weigel Broadcasting and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV," the network airs a variety of classic television programs from the 1950s through the early 1990s, which are obtained primarily from the libraries of CBS Television Distribution and 20th Television. Through its ownership by Weigel, MeTV is sister to three other networks that source their programming content from the network's distributors: rerun-focused networks Heroes & Icons and Decades (the latter operated as a joint venture with CBS Television Stations), the film-focused Movies! (a joint venture with Fox Television Stations) and the drama-focused Start TV.

MeTV is carried on digital subchannels of affiliated television stations in most markets; however, some MeTV-affiliated stations carry the network as a primary affiliation on their main channel, and a small number of stations air select programs from the network alongside their regular general entertainment schedules. The network is also available nationwide on free-to- air C band satellite via SES-1 in the DVB-S format, and in some markets on AT&T U-verse channels 136 (in standard definition) and 1136 (in high definition), and cable television through cable TV providers. It is also available on Dish Network channel 54 / 8011 in Los Angeles, CA. For other cities, go to. MeTV's operations are based out of Weigel Broadcasting's corporate headquarters on North Halsted Street in Chicago, Illinois.

MeTV was originally developed as a programming block that debuted on January 6, 2003, on Class A television station WFBT-CA (channel 23) in Chicago, Illinois, an independent station owned by Weigel that otherwise maintained a format featuring programming aimed at the market's various ethnic demographics. The block – which initially aired for three hours daily from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m., before expanding to seven hours a day (from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.) by 2004 – featured a broad mix of series from the 1950s to the 1980s, which included among others "The Honeymooners", "I Love Lucy", "Perry Mason", "The Carol Burnett Show", "One Day at a Time", and "Hogan's Heroes"; although the programs that aired as part of the lineup changed occasionally.

On January 1, 2005, Weigel rechristened the Chicago low-power station as WWME-CD and removed the ethnic programming that filled its late afternoon and nighttime schedule, adopting the MeTV format and on-air branding full-time. Channel 23's former ethnic programming and WFBT-CA call letters were transferred to its sister station on UHF channel 48, which used the W48DD call letters prior to the format change.

On August 4, 2007, WWME launched a weekend morning block that primarily featured Spanish dubs of select classic series, "Sí! MeTV" (the first two parts of the moniker were based on the phrase "see me," although "Sí" is the Spanish word for "yes"). Most of the programs carried as part of the "Sí! MeTV" lineup – which ran on the station until its discontinuance on January 25, 2009 – were sourced from the Universal Television library (including "", "", "Miami Vice", "Quantum Leap" and "The Incredible Hulk"), with syndication restrictions imposed on the original English-language versions resulting in some of the programs being made available to the station only in Spanish.

Weigel expanded the format to its station on UHF channel 48 on March 1, 2008 – which adopted the WMEU-CA call letters at that time – under the "MeToo" extension brand, with the two low-power stations also being broadcast locally on separate digital subchannels of Weigel's flagship station WCIU-TV (channel 26). The two stations eventually carved out their own identities, culminating in a format shift on September 14, 2009, when WWME began to exclusively carry off-network sitcoms (such as "I Love Lucy", "Leave it to Beaver", "The Andy Griffith Show", "The Bernie Mac Show", "All in the Family", "The Honeymooners" and "Frasier"), while MeToo on WMEU began running only off-network drama series.

The following month on April 21, Weigel moved the MeTV programming to its dedicated full-powered channel – WJJA (channel 49) in Racine, a Jewelry Television-affiliated station that the group had recently purchased from Kinlow Broadcasting and had its call letters changed to WBME-TV on April 29. It later began transmitting the station's signal from a new digital transmitter on the Weigel tower in Milwaukee's Lincoln Park on October 20 of that year, after WBME officially transferred its operations into the West Allis studios of WDJT and sister stations WMLW-CA and WYTU-LP. MeTV continued to be carried on digital channel 58.3 until October 30, 2008, when it was replaced by newly launched sister network This TV on the same channel. The station also aired public affairs programming including "Racine & Me", and because of its full-power status at the time of the move of MeTV programming to channel 49, programming compliant with FCC educational programming requirements such as "Green Screen Adventures" (a children's program produced for Weigel's Chicago flagship station WCIU-TV) and "Saved by the Bell".

On November 22, 2010, Weigel announced that it would take the MeTV concept national and turn it into a full-fledged network with a standardized schedule, available to any station that wished to affiliate. As a result, MeTV would compete fully with the Retro Television Network and the then yet-to-launch Antenna TV, while complementing successful then-sister network This TV, which carried library product from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (with a limited number of classic television series featured alongside its movie-dominated schedule) and – until Tribune Broadcasting took over Weigel's operational interest in This TV on November 1, 2013 – children's programming from Cookie Jar Entertainment. The national MeTV network launched on December 15, 2010. As with This TV, MGM handles distribution of the network to prospective affiliate stations.

As part of the standardization with the new network, Chicago's local version of MeTV was integrated with MeToo, combining a selection of comedy and drama programming that had respectively been featured on WWME and WMEU onto the latter station's schedule under the MeToo brand as a locally programmed service. In the Chicago market, the national MeTV is carried on WCIU subchannel 26.3 and WWME-CA (the latter of which serves as its flagship station, and through its ownership by Weigel, an owned-and-operated station of the network); the new MeToo moved to WCIU subchannel 26.4 and remained on WMEU-CA.

Low-powered WBME-CD in Milwaukee carries the national feed of MeTV in its entirety on digital channel 41.1; as a full-power station, prior to an August 2012 license swap that saw sister independent station WMLW move to full-power channel 49, while WBME moved to low-power channel 41 (the latter of which resulted in MeTV returning to its former secondary 58.2 slot to allow the latter to reach the entire market and to provide cable providers with a quality source of its signal), Weigel-owned ABC affiliate WBND-LD (channel 57) in South Bend began carrying MeTV on its 57.2 subchannel on December 15, 2010.

On April 1, 2013, Nielsen began to tabulate national viewership for MeTV, including the network in its prime time and total day ratings reports. In February 2016, the network began to transmit its master feed in widescreen standard definition (which is also the preferred aspect ratio for sister networks Heroes & Icons and Decades), after conducting beta-testing in the format on WWME-CD months earlier. Although most affiliates continue to carry the MeTV feed in the format due to technical considerations regarding transmission of their primary channel in high-definition and/or carriage of other subchannels, the switch to a widescreen feed was done mainly to accommodate national and local advertisers that produce commercials exclusively in the 16:9 format and prefer not to have their advertising letterboxed into a 4:3 presentation, and stations which carry newscasts and other local programming on their MeTV subchannels that prefer to present them in widescreen. With the conversion, MeTV also began to carry remastered widescreen prints of some programs (such as "CHiPs," "The Incredible Hulk" and "Wonder Woman") and present its program promotions in the 16:9 format; most other programming to which Me-TV has only obtained 4:3 prints are presented in an anamorphic format.

MeTV's program schedule relies primarily on the extensive library of television programs that are currently owned by CBS Television Distribution, and 20th Television, along with select programs from other distributors; as such, no originally-produced programming appears on the network, though MeTV does air a program produced by parent company Weigel Broadcasting ("Svengoolie"). Similar to the former local MeTV and MeToo formats, the network maintains a broad variety of classic television programs, carrying approximately 60 program titles on its weekly schedule; the network's slate of programming is regularly altered at the start of its fall, winter and summer programming seasons, which respectively begin on Labor Day, New Year's Day and Memorial Day (the one exception to programming changes is "M*A*S*H)". Since MeTV broadcasts programs that it acquired through the syndication market, episodes of these shows are usually edited to fit into the allotted running time with commercials factored in.

The network does not air a split-screen credit sequence or feature voiceovers promoting upcoming network programming during the closing credits (borrowing a format standard in local broadcast syndication). The network's primary continuity announcer is Chicago-based voice-over artist Carol Gallagher, who has served as MeTV's staff announcer since its existence as a local programming format on WWME-CA and WMEU-CA, prior to its establishment as a national network; longtime voice-over artist Richard Malmos, who has been the continuity announcer for Weigel's flagship station WCIU since December 1994 (and is also known as the continuity announcer for many stations owned by, among other groups, the Sinclair Broadcast Group), is the network's secondary announcer.

Unlike other digital multicast networks such as former sister network This TV and competitor Antenna TV, MeTV does not usually run day-long marathons of its programs on major national holidays. Instead, the network airs holiday-themed episodes of its shows on some holidays (such as Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas) as part of its regular schedule, which air in the program's normal time slot but are shown out-of-order from their regular episode rotation. Since its inception as a national network, MeTV has also aired marathons of "The Doris Day Show" on Christmas Eve as well as Christmas-themed specials during the month of December. In December 2014, the network aired Christmas episodes of its programs each weeknight from 10:00–11:00 p.m. Eastern Time, as part of the "MeTV Christmas Conundrum" stunt block, along with airing Christmas episodes of its programs from late Christmas Eve through Christmas night (this was repeated in 2015, albeit in an earlier prime time slot, featuring Christmas-themed episodes of series feature on the network's schedule and other shows from its program distributors that were not part of the regular lineup).

The network occasionally pays tribute to a recently deceased actor or actress with a marathon showcasing episodes of their past television roles (either those that the performer had starred in as a regular or appeared as a guest star) to which MeTV has access to broadcast through its distributors, pre-empting episodes originally scheduled to air that day; however, these have aired in a significantly decreased fashion since the discontinuance of the "MeTV Sunday Showcase" block in September 2012.

MeTV has program licensing agreements with 20th Television (which includes series produced by 20th Century Fox Television, Four Star Television and MTM Enterprises), CBS Television Distribution (which includes most of the Paramount Television library that was acquired by CBS following the 2006 split of its namesake corporate parent and Viacom into separate companies, along with series from Desilu Productions, Bing Crosby Productions, Don Fedderson Productions, QM Productions, Spelling Television and Republic Pictures Television) and carries select titles from Warner Bros. Television Distribution. MeTV also shares broadcast rights to programs from the NBCUniversal Television Distribution library with CoziTV (including shows from Universal Television, Revue Studios, NBC Studios and MCA Television) and Sony Pictures Television with Antenna TV, as well as select titles from the Peter Rodgers Organization with the Retro Television Network.

The network's programming lineup covers a mix of sitcoms, dramas, and westerns from the 1950s to the early 2000s.

MeTV regularly carries many of its programs in organized genre-based programming blocks, most of which use the "Me" moniker (in some cases, as an intentional pun) for brand unification purposes.Despite access to program content from the Universal Television, CBS Television and 20th Century Fox libraries, movies have a relatively limited presence on MeTV's weekly schedule. The network airs the Rich Koz-hosted horror and science fiction film showcase "Svengoolie" on Saturday evenings, which is syndicated by sister independent station WCIU-TV and features film releases from Universal Studios.

From September 2013 to January 2014, MeTV aired a prime-time film block on Friday evenings, "The MeTV Made for TV Movie", which showcased made-for-television films from the 1970s to the 1990s that were originally seen on NBC, ABC and CBS; the block later began to include movie- length blocks of certain series available on the MeTV schedule. Until September 2013, the network also aired Laurel and Hardy movies and shorts (which are distributed by Sonar Entertainment) on Sunday mornings.

In order to comply with educational programming requirements mandated by the Federal Communications Commission's Children's Television Act on behalf of the network's affiliates, MeTV carried an hour-long block of "Green Screen Adventures" (Weigel's Chicago-based program originally meant for local viewing) on Saturday mornings and a two-hour block of the teen sitcom "Saved by the Bell" (which has long been used to meet E/I requirements, including by the original Chicago MeTV on WWME-CA prior to the national network's launch, and the TNBC block it formerly anchored) on Sunday mornings.

In September 2013, MeTV began customizing its weekend morning lineup in order to allow its affiliates to choose between running both the Saturday and Sunday E/I blocks, or running the children's lineup on one weekend day and a three-hour block of classic series in place of the children's programs on the other, allowing stations to fulfill educational programming quotas by running the minimum three-hour requirement or an overall total of six hours of E/I content (this was reconfigured in January 2015 to allow stations the option of pre-empting the final two hours of the Saturday E/I block to carry only "Green Screen Adventures" and "Saved by the Bell" to reach their weekly E/I requirements). The network moved its children's programming to Sunday mornings in October 2016 for more classic television programming on Saturday morning including The Little Rascals and three additional hours of westerns. Starting October 2, MeTV’s educational/informational block on Sunday mornings was overhauled with the addition of "Beakman’s World" and "Bill Nye the Science Guy", the latter acquired from Disney-ABC Home Entertainment and Television Distribution. Saved by the Bell also continued to air on the station on Sunday mornings (as it still does).

MeTV also previously ran a children's program block on Saturday mornings called "AniMeTV" (which despite how the name – due to the network's use of the "Me" moniker as a branding avenue for its blocks – makes it appear, aired no anime programming), that was handled by New York City-based Classic Media (which, along with NBCUniversal, Nelvana and Scholastic Entertainment, previously co-owned the digital multicast network Qubo in conjunction with Ion Media Networks). The three-hour block debuted on April 7, 2012, to compete with The CW's Toonzai and This TV's Cookie Jar Toons/This Is for Kids. The block featured animated series such as "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" and "", along with "Gumby" and "Mr. Magoo" animated shorts; the block officially ended on October 6, 2012, rendering Vortexx (which replaced Toonzai in 2012) and Cookie Jar Toons/This Is for Kids as the only children's blocks on a broadcast network without a strictly-E/I lineup. MeTV began airing the cult classic Sid & Marty Krofft productions "H.R. Pufnstuf" and "Land of the Lost" during the 2013 Christmas season; the shows became part of the regular Saturday morning lineup on December 28, 2013 as part of an hour-long block called "Sid & Marty Krofft and Me".

, MeTV has current or pending affiliation agreements with 203 television stations in over 185 television markets encompassing all 50 states and the District of Columbia, covering approximately 92.54% of the United States; this makes MeTV the largest subchannel network by population reach percentage (a distinction once held by former sister network This TV), and the seventh largest commercial broadcast television network in the U.S.-based on total number of affiliates. Of these affiliates, 24 stations carry the network as a formal primary channel affiliation and two are general entertainment stations that air select MeTV programs on a tape-delayed basis. In almost all of its affiliation agreements, the network's channel slot is mandatorily required to be slotted on either a station's primary channel, or its secondary digital subchannel; in San Diego, this stipulation required the move of MeTV from CBS affiliate KFMB-TV's second subchannel, to ABC affiliate KGTV's second subchannel upon KFMB's launch of a subchannel for The CW to replace XETV-TDT's affiliation.

Like former sister network This TV, many of MeTV's affiliates (some of which replaced This TV with MeTV, after the former was partially acquired by Tribune Broadcasting) include regional descriptors reflecting the station's primary broadcast area underneath the logo bug displayed during the network's programming (these descriptors are also used in the customized station identifications shown at the top of each hour between programs or during commercial breaks, which differ from the silent lower third in-program IDs seen on This TV). Some stations either display customized logos using adapted versions of their current logo with the subchannel number below the main MeTV logo bug (such as WSB-TV in Atlanta and WFLA-TV in Tampa) or in order to fit in with the network's "retro" format, a logo formerly used by the station. Others display their callsign and city of license (and in some cases, the affiliate's virtual channel number) below the MeTV bug full-time in case the full-screen ID sequence malfunctions in some manner. From August 2014 to August 2015, station identifications for MeTV were based around the motif "Thank You for Making Us America's #1 All Classic TV Network", allowing local affiliates to customize their IDs to refer to their individual viewing area (for example, "Thank You, Chicago" on WWME-CD).

Although MeTV prefers that its local affiliates carry the entire schedule, some affiliates regularly pre-empt certain network programs in order to air morning and/or prime time newscasts produced by the station specifically for the subchannel or public affairs programs (such as with WLKY-TV in Louisville and WBAL-TV in Baltimore); this has become particularly more common since September 2015, when other Hearst Television-owned stations in markets where the group does not maintain a duopoly (as is the case with WBAL and WLKY, which debuted theirs earlier) gradually began launching prime time newscasts on their MeTV-affiliated subchannels. Some of the major network affiliates that carry MeTV full-time (such as WBAL, WLKY and WCVB-TV in Boston) use the affiliated subchannel as a buffer during network sports coverage, breaking news or severe weather coverage situations to carry regularly scheduled network and/or syndicated programming seen on its main channel.

Some affiliates may also preempt select MeTV programs to air infomercials (such as with WZME in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which pre-empted much of the network's morning and late night schedule with paid programming), locally acquired syndicated programming (such as with WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., which aired events from the American Sports Network, a syndicated college sports distributor owned by WJLA parent Sinclair Broadcast Group, over its former MeTV subchannel on some weekends), or in some cases, because the local syndication rights to a particular program are held by a station other than the MeTV affiliate (such as with "The Andy Griffith Show", which since the network began airing the program in September 2014, is substituted in many markets with an alternate feed of its spin-off "Mayberry R.F.D."). To address these variances, MeTV includes the fine print notation ""On most MeTV stations"" at the end of its program promotions regardless of whether a program or block is specifically promoted, typically during the timeslot card. Additionally, stations may also air select MeTV programs that are recorded in advance on their main channels in order to fill unprogrammed time slots or for use as a backup source of programming in the event that a network-televised sports event is delayed or postponed due to inclement weather as well as during the Christmas season to provide supplementary holiday-themed programming.

Two of MeTV's subchannel-only affiliates – WBBJ-TV in Jackson, Tennessee (which primarily affiliates its 7.3 subchannel with CBS) and WIBW-TV in Topeka, Kansas (which primarily affiliates its 13.2 subchannel with MyNetworkTV) – carry its programming on a secondary basis while nominally serving as an affiliate of a major broadcast network due to the lack of enough available stations in their markets for a standalone main channel affiliation (though despite the'secondary' status, these stations still carry the majority of MeTV's broadcast schedule). One other affiliate, WBBZ-TV in Springville, New York (which serves the Buffalo market), carries the network's programming part-time within its main channel's regular schedule, while running the full MeTV network feed on a separate subchannel. Over time however, MeTV's ratings strength and popularity have actually caused some of these split situations to end, with MeTV going full-time on Charlottesville, Virginia's WAHU-CD2 at the start of 2019, ending its run as a MeTV affiliate carrying MyNetworkTV in primetime.

On January 7, 2011, KCTU-LD in Wichita, Kansas became the first television station not owned by Weigel to carry the MeTV network. However, KCTU's affiliation with the network lasted only about one week, as that station's owner, Great Plains Television Network LLC, and Weigel could not come to terms on a long-term affiliation contract. In early 2011, Bahakel Communications became the first non-Weigel station group to sign selected stations to carry MeTV on their digital subchannels, with its stations in Charlotte, North Carolina (WCCB) and Columbia, South Carolina (WOLO-TV) adding the network in early March of that year. On April 4, 2011, Weigel announced affiliation agreements for MeTV with 14 broadcasting companies, most notably Hearst Television, Raycom Media, Cox Media Group, Media General and Titan Broadcast Management. Also of note, in December 2013, the network moved its Dallas-Fort Worth affiliation to a newly created subchannel of independent station KTXA (replacing Greenville-based KTXD-TV, which abruptly disaffiliated from MeTV three months earlier), marking CBS Television Stations' first affiliation deal involving a major subchannel network (Weigel and CBS would later partner to create Decades, a similar classic television-focused network that launched on May 25, 2015).

MeToo is a defunct companion programming format, which launched on March 1, 2008, on WMEU-CA in Chicago as an extension of the local MeTV format on sister station WWME-CA. It initially maintained a wide selection of off-network sitcoms and drama series from a variety of distributors (similar to WWME's locally exclusive MeTV format, but differing from the limited distributor output of the present-day national MeTV network). Initially, WMEU maintained a similar programming schedule as WWME; however by the fall of 2008, their formats were modified to feature one station focusing mainly on sitcoms and the other largely focusing on dramas. When WWME adopted a sitcom-intensive format for its MeTV schedule on September 14, 2009, the MeToo schedule on WMEU-CA was similarly streamlined to feature only off-network dramatic programs (such as "Perry Mason", "," "," "The Rockford Files" and "The Twilight Zone") and films.

As WWME became a charter station of the national network on December 15, 2010, WMEU concurrently reverted to a general entertainment format – combining some of its existing inventory of drama programming with a selection of comedy programs aired by WWME prior to MeTV's format-to-network conversion; however it continued to carry a mix of both classic and recent programs, resulting in the local MeToo channel airing a broader variety of programming than that provided by the national version of MeTV, which largely restricts its acquired programming to series that debuted prior to 1985. The MeToo format was relegated to WWME's analog signal and WCIU digital subchannel 26.4 on November 1, 2013, when WMEU was converted into a standalone extension of WCIU's "The U Too" subchannel, itself an extension of the general entertainment independent station format carried by that station's primary channel, albeit with some classic series remaining on the schedule. The MeToo format was discontinued outright on December 29, 2014, when it was replaced on WCIU-DT4 by Weigel's new male-targeted classic television network Heroes & Icons.

Weigel Broadcasting had planned to expand the MeToo format to Milwaukee, intending to launch a similar locally programmed subchannel on WBME-TV in early 2011. However, these plans were delayed and ultimately scuttled due to the launch of sister network Movies! on May 27, 2013, which took the 49.3 channel slot that had been proposed to carry the Milwaukee MeToo service. After Movies! moved to a newly created second digital subchannel of ABC affiliate WISN-TV (channel 12) in August 2014, WMLW-DT3 became a charter affiliate of Heroes & Icons.

Through a local marketing agreement with owner Venture Technologies Group, Weigel operates WRME-LP (channel 6) in Chicago as a co-branded radio station, known as "MeTV FM," which maintains an oldies format focusing on classic music from the 1950s to the 1980s. The format change, announced on February 9, 2015, and formally commencing on February 23, coincided with Weigel's assumption of an LMA first formed in April 2012 between Venture Technologies and Merlin Media (the LMA was transferred from Cumulus Media to Tribune Broadcasting – which had operated it as a sports talk station – in February 2014, before switching to an FM simulcast of sister station 720 WGN in December of that year).

WRME-LP is licensed as a low-power television station, but operates as a radio station due to a technical anomaly with the analog VHF channel 6 frequency for television transmissions that allows the audio feed of such stations to be heard on 87.75 MHz on the FM band (with a visual station identification slide used on the station's television broadcasts to fulfill FCC licensing requirements).

In May 2017, it was announced that Weigel had partnered with Envision Networks to syndicate the MeTV FM brand and format as a radio network, with Weigel handling programming and Envision handling distribution. The company cited the success of the original station (which, by then, was tied for audience share with its closest full-power competitors WJMK and WLS-FM, and by March 2018, was the 6th highest-rated station in the market), as well as the possibility of cross-promotional opportunities with MeTV television affiliates.