WXTV-DT (channel 41) is a television station licensed to Paterson, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York metropolitan area. It is one of two flagship stations of the Spanish-language network Univision (alongside WLTV-DT in Miami–Fort Lauderdale), and is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision. Under common ownership with Newark-licensed UniMás outlet WFUT-DT (channel 68) and Smithtown, New York–licensed True Crime Network affiliate WFTY-DT (channel 67), the three stations share studio facilities on Frank W. Burr Boulevard in Teaneck, New Jersey; WXTV-DT and WFUT-DT share transmitter facilities at the Empire State Building in Midtown Manhattan.

WXTV's programming is simulcast to Long Island on WFTY's third digital subchannel (67.3) from its transmitter in Middle Island, New York.

In 1962, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received two applications for the channel 37 allocation belonging to Paterson, New Jersey—one from the Spanish International Broadcasting Corporation, which at the time only owned two stations, and another from Progress Broadcasting, owner of WHOM (1480 AM). Additionally, use of channel 37 in Paterson had been contemplated for a potential educational station for northern New Jersey. However, even as the channel had picked up a further two interested parties by April 1963, it was not a broadcaster at all that drove the proceedings. The Vermilion River Observatory in Danville, Illinois, a radio astronomy facility, objected to any channel 37 facility being built—the channel having been allocated to 19 communities across the country—because their observatory was designed to detect signals in the 608–614 MHz range, coinciding with channel 37; using these frequencies, the observatory could detect specific types of radiation that existed at no other wavelength. The FCC, arguing that there was no other available channel for a station in Paterson, proposed initially to award no channel 37 station within 600 miles (970 km) of Danville and that all stations would have overnight broadcasts curtailed. An editorial in The New York Times called on the FCC to reserve the channel on a national basis for radio astronomy.

In October 1963, the FCC opted to devote channel 37 entirely to radio astronomy uses until at least 1974 and announced it would allocate another channel to Paterson. The four channel 37 applicants—Spanish International Broadcasting Corporation, Progress Broadcasting, Bartell Broadcasters, and Trans-Tel—would have to wait until the FCC assigned another channel to Paterson. Originally, 66 was proposed, but by 1965, channel 41 had instead been assigned.

Trans-Tel, which proposed a station airing programming for the tri-state area's Spanish-speaking and Black communities, came out the winner in a settlement that also saw Bartell drop out and Spanish International get the option to acquire 50 percent of the permit. This option was exercised in 1967.

Initially planned to broadcast from the Empire State Building, construction was sped up when the FCC allowed the station—taking the call letters WXTV—to move its transmitter to the Cities Service Building until the World Trade Center was completed, becoming the first television station to use the mast and first broadcast station since 1950. The station went on the air August 4, 1968, from studios at 641 Main Street in Paterson, a property it leased from former mayor Frank X. Graves, Jr. The station focused on filmed programs from Mexico and Puerto Rico at the outset, though it also aired local news, and some English-language programming, primarily public affairs material for North Jersey, including a news wrap-up and election debates. Additionally, because the electricity supply to the Cities Service Building meant the transmitter could only be powered when the air conditioning and elevator systems were off, channel 41 could only broadcast at first in the evenings.

For several years, the location of the transmitter was a hot-button issue. Rene Anselmo, one of the founders of the Spanish International Network, claimed that when WXTV initially inquired as to space at the Empire State Building, it was told it would have to sign a 20-year lease. Because all of the other stations were scheduled to move to the World Trade Center, it opted to wait at the Cities Service Building. However, when the center neared completion, it began causing reception issues for WXTV, particularly because the Cities Service transmitter was closer to the towers than the other stations at the Empire State Building. The station blamed the Port of New York Authority for poor reception and implored viewers to complain to Austin Tobin; the Port Authority complained that the intention of channel 41's actions was to try and move its transmitter to the WTC. Claiming that the Port Authority was stalling on prior agreements to move the stations to the WTC, WXTV ran a full-page advertisement in the Daily News imploring viewers to "Wake Up!" and declaring that "The Port Authority is killing your TV reception...and doesn't give a damn!". It also threatened to sue the Port Authority; Anselmo wrote to FCC commissioner Robert E. Lee and the governors of New York and New Jersey asking for their intercession.

The station was successful in getting FCC approval to operate from the World Trade Center in 1974, but delays continued for years. In April 1980, the Port Authority finally reached an agreement to allow WXTV and its direct competitor, WNJU-TV, to operate from its antenna site on the north tower. However, further pushbacks by the Port Authority over radiation concerns for visitors to the south tower's 107th-story observation deck led Anselmo to start a hunger strike in an RV parked at the base of the towers in May 1980. Finally, in June, an agreement was approved to allow WXTV and WNJU to broadcast from the tower.