The station's original construction permit was issued as early as 1990. Channel 27 first signed on the air on April 23, 2000 under the ownership of Reece Associates Ltd., with WFTV operating the station under a local marketing agreement ; Reece was co-owned by former WFTV reporter/anchor Marsha Reece. Several months before WRDQ signed on, in August 1999, the Federal Communications Commission began allowing duopolies involving commercially licensed television stations, allowing Cox to exercise an option to acquire the station outright on February 1, 2001. On May 24, 2011, Cox decided to use WRDQ to carry coverage of the Casey Anthony trial in full from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with WFTV airing the last hour from 4 to 5 p.m., preempting the station's weekday programming schedule. High interest in the trial eventually led to coverage being increasingly shifted to WFTV ; on June 8, coverage was moved to WFTV entirely, after ABC granted Cox permission to move ABC Daytime programming to WRDQ for remainder of the trial's duration. It returned to WFTV upon the trial's conclusion. ABC Daytime was temporarily moved to WRDQ once more during WFTV's coverage of the George Zimmerman trial in 2013. From 2016 until 2019, WRDQ aired Orlando City SCsoccer matches until WRBW began airing the matches starting in 2019.
On April 14, 2008, the station launched a new digital sub-channel 27.2 to carry the Retro Television Network. On September 5, 2011, WRDQ replaced RTV with Antenna TV on its second digital subchannel. The RTV affiliation in Orlando then moved to a sub-channel of competitor WKMG-TV and later onto WRCF-CD. In June 2013, WRDQ added a third sub-channel 27.3. In January 2014, 27.3 was remapped as virtual channel 31.2 and used for a simulcast of Telemundo Orlando affiliate WTMO. On April 10, 2015, a fourth sub-channel 27.4 was added to accommodate the move of Grit TV from sister station WFTV. In 2020, WRDQ replaced Antenna TV with a duplicate station of Court TV on 27.2 which can be also seen on WOTF-DT5.
Shortly after the station signed on, WFTV began producing a nightly half-hour 10 p.m. newscast for WRDQ ; this program competes with an in-house newscast that runs for an hour on Foxowned-and-operated stationWOFL and a newscast produced by NBC affiliate WESH that it produces for CW-affiliated sister station WKCF. On June 29, 2006, WFTV began broadcasting newscasts in high definition; the WRDQ shows were included in the upgrade. In January 2007, WFTV also began producing a two-hour weekday morning newscast from 7:00-9:00 a.m. on channel 27. Prior to the debut of the morning newscast, the 10:00 p.m. news program was branded as Action News at 10. This title was derived from WRDQ's general station branding at the time of the station's launch. WRDQ has also aired The Daily Buzz from 7:00-9:00 a.m. on digital subchannel 27.2, preempting some classic programming broadcast by Antenna TV that are seen on that slot nationally on that network's other affiliates. On two occasions, WRDQ has also aired early evening newscasts; a 7 p.m. newscast was produced for a time in March 2003 to present Iraq War coverage, and a 6:30 p.m. newscast was seen on the station from September 2010 until it was dropped in June 2013 in favor of a 4 p.m. newscast on WFTV. On September 15, 2014, WFTV expanded the weeknight 10:00 p.m. news on WRDQ to an hour, citing the ratings success of the broadcast in which has now able to tightly compete against long-time leader WOFL.
