The station first signed on the air in January 1967 as WJAN, an independent station owned by Janson Industries; it offered a typical slate of locally produced and syndicated programming. In its early years, live studio broadcasts were in black-and-white only, as the station could not afford color studio cameras. Feature films and videotaped programming from outside sources were always reproduced on color-capable equipment. However, many of the movies broadcast in the early years were classics from a time when color films were the exception. Sometime before 1970, the station obtained two IVC color studio cameras, which were replaced in 1971 with state of the art Norelco PC-70s. Almost from the start, WJAN broadcast religious programming. For example, live Sunday morning services from a Baptistchurch in Canton and other nationally syndicated material supplied on tape and film. A typical program schedule during the week would consist of a sign-on at 1:00 p.m. with syndicated programming, followed by children's cartoons, a children's live entertainment program, local live news, local live variety programs, then repeats of major network programs. Finally, a 10:00 p.m. live newscast followed by a classic film would finish the broadcast day. Although serving Canton, WJAN was categorized as a Cleveland market station. This made it difficult to obtain desirable programming at a reasonable cost. The right to broadcast a program is usually made exclusive within a market, so WJAN was competing with more established Cleveland stations for the right to broadcast repeats of popular network programming. Such was the curse of a typical independent UHF station in those times. The allure of taking paid religious programming was hard to resist. Beginning in 1974, WJAN added The PTL Club, a syndicated two-hour program originating in Charlotte, North Carolina. ABCaffiliate WAKR-TV in Akron added The 700 Club to its daily schedule about the same time. The relationship between the PTL organization and WJAN deepened. In August 1977, Janson sold WJAN to televangelist Jim Bakker, founder of the PTL Club. Under Bakker, WJAN adopted a near 24-hour-a-day Christian format, becoming the first commercial TV station in Ohio to adopt a 24-hour broadcast schedule. Programming was supplied from a wide variety of organizations, both local and national. In 1981, a satellite receive station was built at the studio-transmitter site. The PTL Satellite Network had recently launched. Being wholly owned by PTL, WJAN soon transitioned to satellite delivery of the majority of all programming. Bakker was forced to sell WJAN to the David Livingstone Missionary Foundation in December 1982; shortly afterward, its calls were changed to its current call letters, WDLI-TV. The station continued broadcasting the PTL Satellite Service full-time. Four years later, in March 1986, Livingstone sold WDLI to the Trinity Broadcasting Network. At that point, PTL programs were dropped in favor of TBN programming. On January 1, 2009, WDLI began to be carried on most Cleveland area cable providers.
Ion era
TBN entered into an option agreement with Ion Media Networks on November 14, 2017, which gave Ion the option to acquire the licenses of WDLI-TV and three other TBN stations that had sold their spectrum in the Federal Communications Commission 's spectrum auction; Ion exercised the option on May 24, 2018. The sale was completed on September 25, 2018, creating a duopoly with WVPX-TV. The next day, TBN programming was dropped for Ion Life, effectively re-mapping WVPX's former 23.3 subchannel to 17.1 and allowing that schedule market-wide main-channel cable and satellite carriage.
Digital television
Digital channel
TBN constructed a new studio and transmitter in the Akron suburb of Norton, near other television and radio transmission towers in the area near Akron's Rolling Acres Mall. WDLI's digital signal is receivable throughout the Cleveland market, unlike its analog signal, which had poor reception away from Canton. Though the station's operations are now all located near Akron, Canton remains WDLI's city of license. WDLI-TV shut down its analog signal, over channel 17, on that date. The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition channel 39. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former analog channel 17. On November 15, 2010, WDLI moved its digital signal from channel 39 to channel 49 as part of an additional boost to its transmitter power. On June 1, 2015, JUCE and Smile of a Child were consolidated into a single network on the third subchannel to accommodate the addition of a new network, TBN Salsa, on the fifth subchannel where Smile of a Child used to reside. As a result of the change, children's programming that previously aired on Smile of a Child was carried on 17.3 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. On March 30, 2018, the channel switched off its non-shared signal, leaving it to air only on its new frequency shared with WVPX-TV.
Spectrum sale and channel sharing arrangement
On April 13, 2017, the results of the FCC's 2016 spectrum auction were announced, with TBN successfully selling the UHF spectrum for WDLI for $31.6 million. WDLI will not leave the air, arranging to share a channel with Ion Television owned-and-operated station WVPX-TV, and the main TBN channel retained, along with its virtual channel 17. TBN filed a waiver with the FCC to have WDLI remain on the air until April 23, 2018, while the channel share was coordinated.
Translator stations
WDLI's signal was once relayed on translators W52DS in Youngstown, and W51BI serving Geauga, Lake, and eastern Cuyahoga counties from a site in Kirtland. Both translators were shut down by TBN due to declining support, which was attributed to the digital transition; W51BI ceased operations on July 13, 2009, while W52DS left the air March 26, 2010. Their licenses, along with 42 other silent TBN repeaters, were cancelled on December 1, 2011 for remaining silent over a year.
