, channel 20, is a television station in
Washington, D.C. . Owned by
Fox Television Stations , a division of the
News Corporation , WDCA is a sister station to
Fox Network outlet
WTTG (channel 5), and is affiliated with the co-owned
MyNetworkTV programming service. The two stations share studio facilities in the
Tenleytown section of Washington, and WDCA's transmitter is located in
Bethesda, Maryland .
From
January 1995 to
August 2006 , WDCA was affiliated with the
United Paramount Network (UPN) . Prior to 1995, WDCA was an independent station.
WDCA-TV signed on as an
Independent Station on
April 20 ,
1966 , owned by the Capitol Broadcasting Corporation. It was Washington's second independent station, nearly 20 years younger than its future sister station WTTG. Veteran Washington broadcaster
Milton Grant , who previously worked at WTTG, was president of Capitol Broadcasting, and thus was WDCA's founding General Manager. Grant would sell channel 20
Three Years Later to the Superior Tube Company although he would stay on as WDCA's General Manager for the next decade.
In
1979 , Superior Tube sold WDCA to the
Cincinnati, Ohio -based
Taft Television And Radio Company . In the
1970s and
1980s , WDCA's best-known personality was
Dick Dyszel , who played ''
Bozo The Clown '', horror movie host "
Count Gore De Vol ", kids show host "
Captain 20 ", and also served as the station's main announcer. The station was also home to ''Petey Greene's Washington'', an
Emmy award-winning show featuring the witicisms and observations of
Ralph "Petey" Greene , civil-rights activist and native Washingtonian.
Under Taft's stewardship, channel 20 became very profitable. As Taft upgraded the programming, WDCA gained higher ratings but still trailed WTTG overall. Channel 20 also became a regional superstation appearing on
Cable Television systems throughout
Maryland and
Virginia ranging as far south as
Charlotte, North Carolina and as far north as
Pennsylvania . In
February 1987 , Taft sold WDCA and its other independent and Fox-affiliated stations to the
Norfolk, Virginia -based
TVX Broadcast Group . The Taft purchase created a debt load for TVX and the sale of their smaller-market stations did not fully reduce the debt. In mid-
1989 , TVX sold a minority interest in its company to
Paramount Pictures . Two years later, in
1991 , Paramount bought TVX's remaining shares and became full owner of the stations, which were renamed the
Paramount Stations Group .
Viacom purchased the group as part of its acquisition of Paramount Pictures in
1993 . During this time, WDCA was known by the on-air branding "DC-20".
On
January 16 ,
1995 , WDCA became a charter affiliate of the
United Paramount Network (UPN), which was originally co-owned by Viacom and
Chris-Craft Industries .
In mid-summer of 1995, WDCA experimented with a 10:00 p.m. newscast to compete with WTTG. ''UPN 20 News at 10'' was a half-hour nightly newscast produced by, and featuring on-air talent from
Allbritton Communications '
News Channel 8 . The newscast was discontinued in the summer of
1996 .
On
October 29 ,
2001 , Viacom traded WDCA to the
News Corporation 's
Fox Television Stations unit (along with
KTXH in
Houston ) in return for
KBHK-TV in
San Francisco , resulting in the first television duopoly in the Washington D.C. market. Fox integrated the operations of both WDCA and WTTG into one, with WDCA moving into WTTG's Wisconsin Avenue facility.
On
January 24 ,
2006 , UPN and the
WB Television Network announced that they would merge to form a new network, known as the
CW Television Network . WB affiliate WBDC (channel 50, now
WDCW ), owned by
Tribune Broadcasting , was announced as Washington's CW station. On the day following the announcement of the creation of the CW, WDCA changed its branding from ''UPN 20'' to ''DCA 20'', and revamped its logo to highlight the brand change. The station also stopped promoting UPN programming. Similar changes were also made to Fox's other UPN affiliates, as the CW network list did not include any of the Fox-owned UPN stations. The formation of
MyNetworkTV , of which WDCA and the other Fox-owned UPN stations have become affiliates, was announced on
February 22 2006 , less than a month later.
Channel 20 began its on-air transition towards MyNetworkTV affiliation on
May 5 , 2006, when WDCA changed its branding again, this time from "DCA 20" to "My 20".
Despite the announced launch date of MyNetworkTV on
September 5 , 2006, UPN continued to broadcast on stations across the country until
September 15 , 2006. While some UPN affiliates who switched to MyNetworkTV aired the final two weeks of UPN programming outside its regular primetime period, the Fox-owned stations, including WDCA, dropped UPN entirely on
August 31 , 2006.
WDCA's digital signal on UHF channel 35 had been very weak due to a problem with Washington D.C. in constructing a new transmitter tower. However, around
August 10 ,
2006 , it was operating at full power and receivable in the suburbs.
