WDCA began broadcasting as anindependent station in April 1966. It was founded by the Capital Broadcasting Company, whose president was Washington broadcasterMilton Grant; Grant sold the station in 1969 to the Superior Tube Company of Pennsylvania but remained general manager until January 1980, leaving to start a career in broadcast station ownership. Channel 20 served as Washington's second-rated independent behind WTTG for decades and as a longtime home for local sports coverage and children's programming.
After being owned byTaft Broadcasting from 1979 to 1987, WDCA and four other Taft-owned independent stations were sold toTVX Broadcast Group, which soon fell into financial difficulties because of the debt associated with the purchase. TheParamount Stations Group acquired WDCA and other stations in two parts between 1989 and 1991, bringing much-needed stability.
WDCA was one of several Paramount-owned stations to be charter outlets for the United Paramount Network (UPN) in 1995; in 2001, after UPN was acquired byCBS, Fox took possession of the station in a trade and merged its operations with WTTG. When UPN merged intoThe CW in 2006, bypassing all of Fox's UPN and independent stations in the process, the station became part of Fox'sMyNetworkTV service. The station was rebranded as Fox 5 Plus, an expansion of WTTG, in 2017, and it airs several WTTG-producedprime time newscasts.
The first interest around channel 20 came in the early 1950s, shortly after the assignment ofultra high frequency (UHF) channels nationwide. Three Washington radio stations—WWDC,WGMS, andWEAM—had applied for the channel by May 1953.[2] WGMS won the permit in 1954,[3] but it returned it in 1956, with company president N. Robert Rogers having "regretfully concluded" that the station would not be viable.[4]
On November 19, 1962, Capital Broadcasting Company applied to build a new television station on channel 20 in Washington, D.C.[5] By May, theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) had received a second application, from Automated Electronics, Inc. ofDallas, which proposed to install the station in nearbyArlington, Virginia.[a] Capital Broadcasting comprised six stockholders includingMilton Grant,[7] a high-profile personality onWTTG (channel 5) from 1956 to 1961 as host ofThe Milt Grant Show, a teen dance hour.[8] As part of his transition from an on-air personality to a media executive, Grant began going by Milton instead of Milt.[9] Capital Broadcasting was granted theconstruction permit on August 13, 1963.[5]
WDCA-TV began broadcasting on April 20, 1966, with a schedule emphasizing sports programming.[10] It was the thirdindependent station in Washington—after WTTG andWOOK-TV (channel 14)—and the area's third UHF outlet following WOOK-TV andWETA-TV (channel 26). After a decade,Vince McMahon'sCapitol Wrestling Corporation promotion moved from channel 5 to channel 20.[11] The station's sports programming ranged from the Virginia Sailors of theAtlantic Coast Football League to local high school football.[12] Some games, particularly hockey, weretape delayed for the sole purpose of adding commercial breaks.[13] Grant boasted that the station was turning a profit within 18 months, having projected not to do so in at least three years.[14]
WDCA's logo under Superior Tube ownership used throughout the 1970s.
In 1968, Grant reached an agreement to sell channel 20 to the Superior Tube Company, a metal tube manufacturer based inWynnewood, Pennsylvania; Grant would remain as general manager.[15] Prior to finalizing the agreement with Superior Tube, it was reported that the station was in negotiations to be purchased by Bishop Industries, the parent company ofHazel Bishop cosmetics.[16] Despite its claims that WDCA-TV had become profitable sooner than projected, Capital Broadcasting had lost "substantial sums" on channel 20. Grant and his partners no longer had the money to continue running the station. That finding was key in the FCC approving the $2.2 million sale in May 1969.[17]
Channel 20 continued to promote itself as a sports station, airing 10 games of theWashington Caps of theAmerican Basketball Association in the 1969–70 season[18] and serving as the originating station forBaltimore Bullets basketball even though the team had not yet moved to Washington.[19] In 1977, the station signed a five-year deal for full live coverage of mostlyaway games for the nascentWashington Capitals, replacingWTOP-TV (channel 9); that station's sporadic and often tape-delayed and edited coverage was called "revolting" byThe Washington Post.[20] WDCA entered into a similar deal with the relocatedWashington Bullets the same year, also replacing WTOP-TV.[21] The station began splitting coverage of both teams with cable channel Home Team Sports (nowMonumental Sports Network) in 1984, an arrangement that continued until both teams moved their over-the-air games toWBDC-TV (channel 50) in 1995.[22][23][24] It was also the Washington-area affiliate of theBaltimore Orioles television network.[25]
In the 1970s and 1980s, WDCA-TV also featured a variety of other local programs. For children, the station featured "Captain 20", a children's show host created in 1969 but played by Dick Dyszel from 1972 to 1987; Dyszel also doubled as "Gore De Vol", host of the station's late night horror movies.[26] TheCaptain 20 Club, wrapped around afternoon cartoons ranging fromBugs Bunny toUltraman, also included regular monkey races.[27] From 1972 until his death in 1984, channel 20 also broadcastPetey Greene's Washington, a public affairs program hosted byRalph "Petey" Greene, civil-rights activist and native Washingtonian.[28][29][30]
Superior Tube originally agreed to sell WDCA-TV to theTribune Company for $12 million in January 1978.[31] However, when ratings results for January and early February turned up major increases in viewership for channel 20, Superior Tube raised its asking price, and Tribune backed out of the sale in early March.[32] Another broadcast station owner,Taft Broadcasting, then struck an agreement to purchase WDCA-TV for $13.5 million.[33][34] The deal took more than a year to close, in part because of objections raised over children's programming by a group known as WATCH (Washington Association for Television and Children). Due to inflation, a strong market for TV stations, and the length of time the deal took to approve, Taft raised its price to $15.5 million.[35]
Even though the FCC approved a contingent license renewal and the transfer of the license in mid-August 1979,[36] a federal appeals court temporarily blocked the purchase and ordered Taft not to operate the station, though the FCC rejected WATCH's motion.[37] At issue was an infrequently enforced and commonly waived FCC policy restricting the number of TV stations that one group could own in the top 50 markets.[38] The FCC officially dropped the policy in November 1979 after the WDCA-TV sale, its only attempt to enforce it in 13 years.[39] The appeals court upheld the sale in 1981, primarily because of the mootness of the case in light of the repeal, though it criticized the FCC's handling of the case.[40]
In January 1980, Grant left channel 20 after nearly 14 years as general manager in order to file an application to build a new station on the unused channel 14.[41][42] By this time, channel 20 had firmly established itself as the second independent in the market. It had also become a regional superstation, with a cable footprint stretching as far north as southern Pennsylvania and as far south asCharlotte, North Carolina.[43] However, channel 20 continued to lag far behind WTTG, which was the nation's highest-rated independent station during 1984. Per Paul Harris inVariety, the station attracted "some undistinguished ratings" outside of its children's and sports programming.[44] To that end, in September 1986, the station conducted a schedule overhaul with increased sports programming and more movies. The change touched every part of the station except the call letters, and management had even contemplated changing those.[45]Tony Vinciquerra, who later became the president ofFox Networks Group, served as WDCA-TV's general sales manager from 1985 to 1986.[46]
Taft put its broadcast group up for sale in August 1986 due to agitation by investorRobert Bass; while it asked $500 million for five independent stations, the winning bidder—TVX Broadcast Group ofNorfolk, Virginia—only paid $240 million, and Taft estimated its after-tax loss for the sale at $45 to $50 million.[47][48] TVX implemented budget cuts, laying off about 15 percent of the staff at the acquisitions; in Washington, 11 employees were immediately laid off—of a planned reduction of 18 personnel—and the production of local children's and public affairs programming was canceled.[49][50] Among the employees TVX laid off was Dyszel.[26]
The Taft stations purchase left TVX highly leveraged and highly vulnerable. TVX's bankers,Salomon Brothers, provided the financing for the acquisition and in return held more than 60 percent of the company.[49] The company was to pay Salomon Brothers $200 million on January 1, 1988, but missed the first payment deadline, having been unable to lure investors to itsjunk bonds even beforeBlack Monday.[51] While TVX recapitalized by the end of 1988,[52] Salomon Brothers reached an agreement in principle in January 1989 forParamount Pictures to acquire options to purchase the investment firm's majority stake.[53] This deal was replaced in September with an outright purchase of 79 percent of TVX for $110 million.[54]
In 1991, Paramount acquired the remainder of TVX, forming theParamount Stations Group.[55] The deal gave Paramount a strategic entrance into the television stations market. The originalViacom purchased the group as part of its acquisition of Paramount Pictures in 1993.[56]
WDCA became an affiliate of theUnited Paramount Network (UPN) upon its launch in January 1995.[57] From 1995 to 1997, annual revenues rose from $17 million to $45 million.[58]
In 2000, Viacom purchasedCBS. On August 12 of that year,United Television—the United in UPN—sold its UPN stations to theFox Television Stations subsidiary ofNews Corporation for $5.5 billion;[59] the deal was finalized on July 31, 2001. As part of its acquisition of United Television, Fox had purchasedKBHK-TV in San Francisco, a city in which Fox did not own its affiliate—but there was a CBS owned-and-operated station. Similarly, Viacom now owned UPN stations in Houston (KTXH) and Washington, D.C. (WDCA), markets where it did not own the CBS affiliate but where there was a Fox owned-and-operated station. It also needed to reduce its national coverage to come under FCC ownership limits.[60] As a result, Fox traded KBHK-TV to Viacom in exchange for KTXH and WDCA, resulting in three newduopolies, including new Fox duopolies in Houston and Washington.[61] The FCC approved the deal in August 2001 on the condition that Viacom sell one of its San Francisco radio stations.[62][63]
Fox consolidated the two stations' operations at WTTG's studios in Washington'sFriendship Heights neighborhood, and it also dismissed WDCA's general manager, placing both stations under WTTG's management.[64][65]
January–May 2006, after the CW merger announcement, as "DCA 20" with all UPN branding removed
May–June 2006
June 2006–July 2017, with the MyNetworkTV branding in place
On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit ofTime Warner andCBS Corporation (which had been created as a result of the split of Viacom at the start of the year) announced that the two companies would shut downThe WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network calledThe CW.[66][67] In unveiling the merged network, while WB and UPN affiliates owned by WB minority stakeholderTribune Broadcasting (includingWBDC-TV in Washington) and byCBS Television Stations were announced as charter outlets, none of the Fox-owned UPN stations—many of which were competitors to these stations—were chosen. Fox also immediately moved to strip the stations of UPN branding.[68] The next month, News Corporation then announced the creation of its own secondary network,MyNetworkTV, to serve its own outgoing UPN stations as well as those that had not been selected for The CW.[69][70]
WDCA shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 20, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 35, usingvirtual channel 20.[71]
On April 4, 2017, the FCC announced that WDCA was a winner in the 2016–17spectrum reallocation auction and in return received $119 million for the frequency. WDCA ceased broadcasting its own signal over channel 35 on July 18, 2018, continuing to broadcast on WTTG's multiplex.[72][73]
On April 17, 2017, Fox announced that WDCA would be re-branded as "Fox 5 Plus" on July 17, to provide better name recognition with and aligning it as an extension of WTTG, including a new 8 p.m.prime time newscast.[72][74] WTTG and WDCA relocated from Friendship Heights alongWisconsin Avenue to new studios inBethesda, Maryland, in 2021.[65]
In July 1995, WDCA experimented with a half-hour nightly 10 p.m. newscast,UPN 20 News at 10, to compete with WTTG's long-running prime time newscast. The newscast was produced by regional cable news channelNewsChannel 8.[75][76] The newscast was discontinued in the summer of 1996.[77]
WDCA began airing an 8 p.m. prime time newscast,Fox 5 News on the Plus, on July 17, 2017, as a half-hour broadcast on weekdays and a full hour on weekends.[74] News updates would also air throughout the day.[72] A 9 p.m. half-hour was added in 2018 as part of a series of news expansions across the Fox Television Stations group.[78] The station also has an hour-long 7 p.m. newscast on Saturdays and a 30-minute 7 p.m. newscast on Sundays.[79] In February 2022, WDCA began simulcasting an hour of programming on weekdays fromFox Weather.[80]
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^abNuttycombe, Dave (July 14, 1995)."Captain 20 Ahoy!".Washington City Paper.Archived from the original on September 30, 2018. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2018.
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(*) – indicates station is in one of Maryland's primaryTV markets (**) – indicates station is in an out-of-state TV market, but reaches a small portion of Maryland
(*) – indicates station is in one of Virginia's primaryTV markets (**) – indicates station is in an out-of-state TV market, but reaches a small portion of Virginia
(*) – indicates station is in one of West Virginia's primaryTV markets (**) – indicates station is in an out-of-state TV market, but reaches a small portion of West Virginia
(*) – indicates station is in one of Pennsylvania's primaryTV markets (**) – indicates station is in an out-of-state TV market, but reaches a small portion of Pennsylvania
1These stations are owned byMission Broadcasting but operated by Nexstar under anLMA. 2These stations are owned by Londen Media Group but operated by Nexstar under aTBA. 3Paramount Global andWarner Bros. Discovery still own a combined 25 percent stake inThe CW, however the network is operated entirely by Nexstar. 4These stations are owned byVaughan Media but operated by Nexstar under an LMA. 5TelevisaUnivision owns the licenses to these stations but the stations themselves are operated byEntravision Communications (of which the company owns a 10 percent stake) under an LMA.
