Topic summary
WDCA

WDCA (channel 20), branded Fox 5 Plus, is a television station in Washington, D.C. It is programmed primarily as an independent station, but maintains a secondary affiliation with MyNetworkTV. WDCA is owned by Fox Television Stations alongside WTTG (channel 5); the two stations share studios on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, Maryland, and are broadcast on the same multiplex from a tower on River Road nearby.
WDCA began broadcasting as an independent station in April 1966. It was founded by the Capital Broadcasting Company, whose president was Washington broadcaster Milton 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 by Taft Broadcasting from 1979 to 1987, WDCA and four other Taft-owned independent stations were sold to TVX Broadcast Group, which soon fell into financial difficulties because of the debt associated with the purchase. The Paramount 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 by CBS, Fox took possession of the station in a trade and merged its operations with WTTG. When UPN merged into The CW in 2006, bypassing all of Fox's UPN and independent stations in the process, the station became part of Fox's MyNetworkTV service. The station was rebranded as Fox 5 Plus, an expansion of WTTG, in 2017, and it airs several WTTG-produced prime time newscasts.