WPBT was started by the Community Television Foundation of South Florida and the Dade County School Board as a joint venture on 12th August 1955. Channel 2 steadily increased its hours over the next couple of decades, with the School Board eventually relinquished its share in 1979. It was the default PBS station for West Beach until WXEL joined in 1982. In 2016 those two stations' operators merged to form South Florida PBS allowing them to pool resources.

Between 1979 and 1980 the station aired a number of Tom Baker stories from his first four seasons, and then in 2007 it was one of several PBS stations who broadcast the first series with Christopher Eccleston (it did so twice, but stopped their third run after just a couple of episodes).