The station went on the air on January 11, 1949, as WDTV (W DuMont TeleVision) on channel 3, owned and operated by the DuMont Television Network. It was the third and last DuMont O&O to go on the air, behind WABD in New York and WTTG in Washington. To mark the occasion, a live television special aired that day from 8:30pm to 11pm, with live segments from DuMont, CBS, NBC, and ABC. WDTV was one of the last stations to be granted a construction permit before the Federal Communications Commission imposed what turned out to be a four-year freeze on new licenses.