The station first signed on the air on July 15, 1955, as a project of Notre Dame president
Theodore Hesburgh, originally broadcasting on UHF channel 46. WNDU-TV was owned by the Michiana Telecasting Corporation, a subsidiary of the
University of Notre Dame. The station took its call letters from WNDU radio (
1490 AM and 92.9 FM, later
WNDV-FM), which were also owned by the university until 1998. However, like its radio sisters, it operated as a full-fledged
commercial station rather than a
non-profit public broadcaster (which is standard, and much like fellow NBC affiliate
KOMU-TV in
Columbia, Missouri, was and still is; after WNDU-TV was sold, this left KOMU and
WVUA-CD/WVUA in
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as the only commercial TV stations owned by a university). On September 29, 1957, to much fanfare, WNDU-TV moved to UHF channel 16. The station immediately took the NBC affiliation from
WSJV (channel 28) and has been with the network ever since. WNDU-TV's early broadcast schedule included programs like
Romper Room and the first local telecast of a
Notre Dame football game. WNDU aired the children's program
Sesame Street from 1970 until February 1974, when non-commercial
PBS member station WNIT (channel 34) signed on the air. From 1967 to 1986, WNDU aired
Beyond Our Control, a locally produced
sketch comedy program, which was presented as part of the station's involvement in the
Junior Achievement program. The studio at
State Road 933 and Dorr Road opened in 1982. On October 18, 1995, as a result of the affiliation changes in the South Bend market, WSJV switched to
Fox (it disaffiliated from Fox in 2016 and is a primary
Heroes & Icons-affiliated station) and W58BT signed on as an
ABC affiliate; it eventually became
WBND. WNDU was one of the two stations that retained its network affiliation (the other was
WSBT-TV, which retained its affiliation with
CBS). On November 24, 2005, the University of Notre Dame entered into an agreement to sell the station to
Gray Television for $85 million in an all-cash deal, with the university placing the money received from the sale in an
endowment. The sale closed on March 5, 2006, after which the
Federal Communications Commission granted Gray a cross-ownership waiver for WNDU and
Goshen-based newspaper
The Goshen News. This was necessary because the FCC prohibits the common ownership of a newspaper and a television station in the same market (Gray eventually spun off the
Times and four other newspapers the following year into a new company called Triple Crown Media, which was subsequently merged with Host Communications). WNDU-TV was named station of the year by the Indiana Broadcasters Association for 2015 and 2016. In September 2015, Gray Television announced that it would purchase
Schurz Communications for $442.5 million; Schurz had owned WSBT-TV since it began broadcasting in December 1952. Despite WSBT-TV's higher ratings, Gray kept WNDU and sold WSBT-TV to expedite approval of the deal; on October 1, 2015, Gray announced that WSBT-TV would be swapped to
Sinclair Broadcast Group for
WLUC-TV in
Marquette, Michigan. The FCC approved the sale on February 12, 2016; the transaction would be completed four days later. On February 1, 2021, Gray Television announced its intent to purchase
Quincy Media, owner of Heroes & Icons affiliate WSJV, for $925 million in a cash transaction. As WSJV is lower ranked than the top four stations in ratings in the South Bend market, Gray sought a failing station waiver to permit common ownership of both WSJV and WNDU-TV. The sale was completed on August 2. ==Programming==