Early history Founded by John J. Weigel (the father of Chicago sportscaster
Tim Weigel), the station first signed on the air on February 6, 1964, as Chicago's first UHF station. It has been owned by Weigel Broadcasting since its inception. WCIU has spent much of its history carrying
multi-ethnic entertainment programming. At its sign-on, channel 26 operated as an
independent station; the call letters stand for "Chicago Independent UHF". A minority stake was held by businessman Howard Shapiro, who founded appliance store chain C.E.T. (Chicago Engineers for Television). Shapiro and his brother Gene took over Weigel Broadcasting and WCIU in 1966. From the late 1960s until 1985, WCIU carried
religious programs during the early morning. The station ran
The Stock Market Observer—a business news block similar in format to the present-day cable channel
CNBC—from about 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. each weekday; the service broadcast from the trading floor of the
Chicago Board of Trade, with WCIU originally maintaining studio facilities at the top floor of the
Chicago Board of Trade Building on West Jackson Boulevard. After 5 p.m. each weekday, the station ran
Spanish language entertainment programming—including controversial
bullfighting matches—from the Spanish International Network (the forerunner to
Univision). During the weekend, WCIU ran a blend of religious programs, Spanish language programs,
paid programming and various other ethnically oriented shows. From 1966 to 1970, the station aired
Kiddie A-Go-Go, a children's
puppet and dance program which was hosted by
Elaine Mulqueen. Several popular musical groups performed on the show, including
The Four Seasons and
New Colony Six. In 1970, channel 26 became the birthplace of the groundbreaking
African American music program
Soul Train, hosted by its creator (and then-WCIU station employee)
Don Cornelius. The show later entered into national
syndication and moved production to
Los Angeles the following year, although WCIU continued to produce a local version of
Soul Train exclusively for the Chicago market until 1976, initially and simultaneously with the Los Angeles-based version, with Cornelius himself as host, succeeded by Clinton Ghent, the main producer under Cornelius. After WXXW (channel 20, allocation later occupied by
PBS member station WYCC)—the second-to-last television station in the market that continued to broadcast in
black-and-white—went
dark in 1974, channel 26 remained the only television station in Chicago that still broadcast its programming in monochrome. Just prior to the Christmas season of 1974, the station installed and tested
color transmission equipment, which broadcast on a
low-power relay station located in
Lincoln Park. In November 1974, the color and black-and-white signals traded transmitter facilities for the remainder of the holiday season; on December 31, 1974, the translator was taken offline as channel 26 started to broadcast in color full-time. In the summer of 1985, the SIN affiliation moved to
WSNS-TV (channel 44); WCIU, meanwhile, became affiliated part-time with NetSpan—which would eventually evolve into
Telemundo—shortly thereafter. Later in the 1980s, Weigel Broadcasting expanded coverage of WCIU-TV to areas of western Illinois,
northwest Indiana and
southeastern Wisconsin through
translator stations. In 1983, the station signed on W55AS (channel 55, now
WBME-CD on channel 41) to relay WCIU's programming into the
Milwaukee market. In 1987, WCIU launched two additional translators, W33AR (channel 33, now
WFBN-LD) in
Rockford, Illinois (which was converted into a simulcast of sister station
WYTU-LD (channel 63) in Milwaukee in August 2012, to provide Telemundo programming into the Rockford market, as WSNS provides weak to
rimshot signal coverage to that area; Telemundo eventually moved to the station's second subchannel to accommodate
TouchVision, followed by
H&I currently), and W12BK (channel 69, now
MyNetworkTV affiliate
WMYS-LD) in
South Bend, Indiana. On October 13, 1988, WSNS-TV announced that it would switch its affiliation to Telemundo after that station's affiliation agreement with Univision concluded on December 31; two months later on December 16, WCIU—whose contract with Telemundo was set to expire the following month—signed an affiliation agreement with Univision, returning the station to that network after two years. The two stations switched affiliations on January 10, 1989.
Return to full-time independence In 1993, Univision asked WCIU to drop all of its English-language programming, including
Stock Market Observer, and carry the network's programming full-time. WCIU refused, which led Univision to purchase then-
English language independent station
WGBO-TV (channel 66) from Combined Broadcasting for $35 million on January 10, 1994, with the intent of moving its programming there the following January. That summer, Howard Shapiro hired Neal Sabin—former
program director at
WPWR-TV (channel 50)—as WCIU's vice president and
general manager, who decided to remake WCIU into a conventional English-language general entertainment independent station. Univision assumed ownership of WGBO in August 1994, but was forced to run that station as an independent station for five months afterward as WCIU's affiliation contract with Univision did not expire until the end of the year. On December 31, 1994, WCIU switched to English-language general entertainment programming full-time and rebranded as "The U". In the spring of 1995, WCIU and low-powered
sister station W23AT (channel 23, later WFBT-CA; now
WWME-CD) moved their operations from the Chicago Board of Trade building into a studio facility at 30 North Halsted Street in Chicago's
Near West Side community. Upon the conversion, channel 26 picked up most of WGBO's syndicated programming inventory, along with newly purchased shows that were not carried by any of the other Chicago stations; it also moved its remaining ethnic programming to WFBT. In order to make room for the Kids' WB block, the full
Stock Market Observer broadcast moved to WFBT-CA, on September 9. The weekday business news programming was then reduced to a -hour block from 8:30 a.m. to noon, a move which was criticized by some viewers; although it cited that Weigel had "no intention of killing" the program, Sabin cited the program's niche format and limited ratings and revenue for the block's shift to WFBT, in order for channel 26 to carry more profitable entertainment programming. In 2000, the program was rebranded as "WebFN", a joint venture between Weigel and
Bridge Information Systems (which also aired on Milwaukee sister station WMLW-CA)."WebFN" would eventually feature several anchors formerly employed with
WMAQ radio (670 AM) after that station was replaced by
sports talk outlet
WSCR in 2000. By the late 1990s, WCIU began adding more recent sitcoms; the station began to add more syndicated first-run
talk and
reality shows onto its daytime lineup in 2000. In September 2001, WCIU dropped the morning children's block, reducing children's programming to the afternoon. In September 2004, the station dropped the Kids' WB weekday and Saturday blocks, which moved to WGN-TV, resulting in that station clearing the entire WB network schedule for the first time. Classic sitcoms gradually disappeared from WCIU's schedule between 2001 and 2004 (some of these programs would find their way onto WFBT when it began running a classic television programming block called "
MeTV", which would become that station's full-time format under the callsign WWME-CA on January 1, 2005). Early in 2005, the business news format was scaled back to include only the existing syndicated program
First Business, which Weigel had assumed production responsibilities for in 2003 after WebFN went bankrupt. That program continued until the end of 2014 under Weigel ownership, and the
Chicago Board Options Exchange took over responsibilities for the program as
Business First AM; it continues to air in Chicago on
CN100 and the
Total Living Network.
Switch to The CW (2019–2024) On April 18, 2019, Weigel Broadcasting signed an agreement with
CBS Corporation through which WCIU-TV would take over as
The CW's Chicago-area affiliate on September 1, replacing WPWR-TV, which had been carrying the network's programming since September 1, 2016. To accommodate the CW prime time lineup, WCIU moved its evening lineup of syndicated programs to WMEU-CD/WCIU-DT2. WMEU-CD/WCIU-DT2, which has been known as "The U Too", took the branding of "The U" on September 1. The new "The U" would also become the new home of the major
high school sports championships of the
Illinois High School Association. Channel 26 was the third station in Chicago to affiliate with The CW, after WGN-TV (2006–2016) and WPWR-TV (2016–2019). Weigel already had experience running a CW affiliate, as it owns
WCWW-LD in the adjacent South Bend market. Like WPWR (which is under a channel sharing agreement with sister station WFLD), WCIU carries its main channel at
720p, below The CW's default
1080i resolution, due to running several standard definition subchannels, along with The U in 720p.
Second return to independence (2024–present) On May 1, 2024, it was announced that The CW would return to WGN-TV in September and WCIU-TV would revert to independent status. By that July, in conjunction with the announcement of WCIU acquiring syndicated reruns of
Bob Hearts Abishola, the station announced it would revive "The U" as its branding, with the brand moving from its previous home at WMEU, with the move; the rebrand would take effect on August 1, during the final month of the CW affiliation, with the station promoting the relaunch with a slightly modified version of their original slogan, "The U'z
STILL Got It!". ==Programming==