WFDC-TV

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WFDC-TV
Arlington, Virginia / Washington, DC
Branding	Univision
Channels	14 (UHF) analog, 15 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	Univision
Owner	Entravision Communications
Founded	September 7, 1963
Call letters meaning	W TeleFutura District of Columbia (after its previous Telefutura affiliation)
Former callsigns	WOOK (1963-1970) WFAN (1970-1972) WTMW (1988-2001)
Former affiliations	Independent (1963-1972, 1988-1997) America's Store (1997-1999) Military Channel (1999) Panda Shopping Network (1999) American Independent Network (1999-2001) Renaissance Network (2001-2002) Telefutura (2002-2005)
Transmitter Power	2680 kW/219 m (analog) 82 kW/173 m (digital)
Website	wfdc.entravision.com/

WFDC-TV is a full-powered Univision affiliate in Washington, DC, located on channel 14 (digital channel 15).

[edit] History

Channel 14 first signed on as WOOK on September 7, 1963 as the first station in the country aimed at the African-American demographic. WOOK's claim to fame was their teen-oriented dance show called Teenarama, which featured big-name acts such as James Brown and Marvin Gaye. The station flipped to Spanish-language WFAN in 1970. The WFAN call letters are now used on the radio station in New York City on the 660 AM frequency (formerly WNBC-AM).

From 1968-1972, channel 14 was the sister station to WMET channel 24 in Baltimore, MD. Both stations were owned by United Broadcasting.

In 1972, channel 14 went dark after accumulating financial difficulties. Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, channel 14 was used to relay public channel 53 WNVT to the Washington, DC market, and occasionally served as a low-power Univision affiliate.

Channel 14 was reborn as WTMW on December 7, 1988; the call letters came from the initials of the owner Theodore M. White. From 1997 to May 1999, WTMW aired programming from America's Store, a discount shopping channel from Home Shopping Network.

In May 1999, WTMW began airing the new Military Channel (no relation to the current channel of the same name owned by Discovery). After the Military Channel stopped broadcasting one month later, channel 14 aired programming from the Panda Shopping Network. Channel 14 became an affiliate of the American Independent Network in December 1999, which primarily broadcasted reruns of old sitcoms and infomercials. The channel flipped again in January 2001 when it became an affiliate of the Renaissance Network.

None of these formats were financially viable and in November 2001, Theodore M. White sold the station to Univision and the call letters were changed to WFDC-TV. Univision already had a Washington affiliate on channel 47 (WMDO) so WFDC-TV Channel 14 became one of the first flagship stations of their new network Telefutura. The network was created to directly compete with Telemundo for the Latin-American demographic, since Univision is more Mexican-oriented. Telefutura first broadcast on January 14, 2002 and channel 14 has done better financially since then.

On January 1, 2006, WFDC and WMDO swapped networks: WFDC began broadcasting Univision and WMDO began broadcasting Telefutura.

[edit] External links

• WMDO / WFDC-TV Website
• Univision website
• WOOK information
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WFDC

Other Television Stations in the state of Virginia
WFDC 14 (Arlington, Univision) - WXOB 17 (Richmond, Religious) - WDRL 24 (Danville, Independent) - WPXR 38 (Roanoke, i) - W39CO 39 (Richmond, TBN) - WPXW 43 (Manassas, i) - WRID 48 (Richmond, DS) - WNVC 56 (Fairfax, MHz Networks) - WLFG 68 (Grundy, religious independent)
Digital only WNVT 30 (Goldvein, MHz Networks)
See also: ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, MyNetworkTV, NBC and PBS stations in Virginia