WFDC-DT

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

WFDC-DT
kW
HAAT227 m (745 ft)
Transmitter coordinates38°56′24″N 77°4′54″W / 38.94000°N 77.08167°W / 38.94000; -77.08167
Links
Public license information
Websitewww.univision.com/local/washington-dc-wfdc

WFDC-DT (channel 14) is a

northwest quadrant
.

History

Prior history of channel 14 in Washington

Channel 14 first signed on as WOOK-TV on March 5, 1963, as the first television 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. In 1968, the station changed its call letters to WFAN-TV to match its co-owned radio station at 100.3 FM. From 1968 to 1972, channel 14 was the sister station to WMET-TV (channel 24) in Baltimore. Both stations were owned by United Broadcasting. On February 12, 1972, WFAN-TV went dark after accumulating financial difficulties and due to license hearings affecting its sister stations.[3]

Channel 14 was back on the air in 1976 in the form of translator W14AA, relaying

Spanish International Network (Univision's predecessor). This station moved to channel 48 in 1989 and is today WMDO-CD.[7]

WFDC station history

In 1985, the channel 14 allocation was awarded to Theodore M. White's Urban Broadcasting Corporation. The plan was to enter the market of general independent stations, dominated by

Washington Post it was aiming to start operations in the spring of 1986, legal wrangling continued among competing applicants delayed sign-on.[8]

It was a further seven years before WTMW signed on April 3, 1993, as a Home Shopping Network (

Chapter 11 bankruptcy less than two years later, on July 3, 1995.[13]

As part of WTMW's plan to emerge from bankruptcy, it agreed to begin broadcasting HSN's secondary network

land mobile radio operations, and the filters required to reduce out-of-band transmissions necessitated a permanent reduction in power to 2,541 kW. However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted WTMW authorization to sign on with 1,440 kW, half of the original power. There were further issues with the transmitting equipment due to failed klystrons; bankruptcy proceedings revealed WTMW broadcast for a "substantial amount of time" at just 360 kW, or one-eighth of the original power. HSN's agreement with WTMW required it to broadcast at its full authorized power to receive compensation from the network; over HSN's objections that Urban Broadcasting was not capable of remedying the transmitter issues, the court found that it was and allowed the agreement to stand. After emerging from bankruptcy, WTMW claimed that its interpretation of the contract set the power requirement at 1,271 kW (i.e., half of 2,541), and not 1,440 kW, which triggered another lawsuit with HSN over which was correct.[13][14]

The lawsuits over the affiliation contract were decided in HSN's favor, and on May 10, 1999, White removed America's Store programming due to non-payment and began broadcasting the Military Channel without warning. Irate viewers flooded local cable companies, who were not aware of the change themselves, with phone calls.

WTMW became an affiliate of the American Independent Network, which primarily broadcast reruns of old sitcoms and infomercials, on December 20 of the same year.[19] Without the fixed income from its HSN affiliation, however, Urban Broadcasting filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy again in August 2000.[11] Concurrently in December, Univision Communications bought all of USA Broadcasting's over-the-air stations including its 45% stake in WTMW.[20]

After two years with AIN, WTMW switched to the locally-based "Renaissance Network" around its launch on January 15, 2001, which provided the same general-entertainment format mixed with current affairs and politics programming with conservative viewpoints.

TeleFutura, now known as UniMás, on January 14, 2002.[22]

This arrangement presented the obvious deficiency of Univision's primary network remaining on a low-powered station that was not subject to

joint sales agreement (JSA) with Entravision, in which Entravision agreed to cede the market's Univision affiliation to WFDC in return for taking over its operation and advertising sales. WMDO-CA switched networks to TeleFutura on the same day. WMDO-CD and WFDC were to remain with their respective networks until the agreement's expiration on December 31, 2021. The Univision affiliation continued on WFDC at the agreement's expiration; UniMás moved to WFDC's fourth digital subchannel on the same day after WMDO-CD lost transmitting facilities and went silent.[23][24]

News operation

After switching from TeleFutura to Univision, the station continued its news department. It broadcast six hours of news on weekdays and two hours of news on the weekends. On September 30, 2012, Buenos Días DC, the first Spanish morning news show in the Washington market, debuted. The show was produced by Silvana Quiroz, who is also the anchor sharing cameras with co-anchor Nestor Bravo. The morning news magazine ran from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. On April 19, 2014, a weekend newscast debuted at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. and ran through October 2015 and was similar to the weekday schedule. On March 1, 2014, the Univision Washington team was replaced. Anchor Mario Sol and sports anchor Oscar Burgos were laid off. Maria Rosa Lucchini, the 6 p.m. anchor, was promoted to White House correspondent; months later, she resigned. Claudia Uceda, the 11 p.m. anchor, was switched to reporter, and months later, resigned to work as a freelancer for the Univision network. Tsi-Tsi-Ki Félix replaced the entire team, leaving only Fanny Gutierrez, who at the time was on maternity leave, and months later, resigned from her duties. Edwin Pitti, who was hired as a reporter, was promoted to White House correspondent.

In late December 2015, Entravision canceled the morning newscasts of all of its stations in the United States (including Buenos Días DC). The last show aired December 7, 2015.[25]

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is

multiplexed
:

Subchannels of WFDC-DT[26]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
14.1 720p
16:9
WFDC-DT Univision
14.2 480i
4:3
getTV
GetTV
14.3 16:9 GRIT
Grit TV
14.4 720p UniMas UniMás
  Subchannel broadcast with MPEG-4 video

In 2001, Entravision purchased

spectrum reallocation, although it currently airs ShopHQ
instead.

Analog-to-digital conversion

WFDC shut down its analog signal, over

UHF channel 14, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 15,[28] using virtual channel
14.

References

  1. ^ "Modification of a Licensed Facility for DTV Application". FCC.gov. Retrieved August 31, 2017.
  2. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WFDC-DT". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  3. ^ a b Richards, K.M. "WOOK-TV/14, Washington, D.C." History of UHF Television. Retrieved June 20, 2019.
  4. ^ Digilio, Alice (February 17, 1977). "WNVT tries for more clarity". Washington Post.
  5. ^ Darling, Lynn (May 22, 1978). "Area Groups Compete for Channel 14". Washington Post.
  6. ^ "In brief" (PDF). Broadcasting. December 27, 1976. p. 20.
  7. ^ "WMDO-CD Facility Data". FCCData.
  8. ^ Carmody, John (December 26, 1985). "THE TV COLUMN". Washington Post.
  9. ^ "[TV studio maintenance engineer]" (PDF). Broadcasting. February 22, 1993. p. 52.
  10. ^ "WFDC-DT Facility Data". FCCData.
  11. ^ a b c "In re: Urban Broadcasting Corporation". Findlaw. March 11, 2005.
  12. ^ McConnell, Chris (June 17, 1996). "Silver King faces more hurdles at the FCC" (PDF). Broadcasting. p. 24.
  13. ^ a b "In re Urban Broadcasting Corp., Case No. 95-12919-SSM Chapter 11". casetext.com.
  14. ^ a b "USA Broadcasting, Inc., and Univision Communications, Inc" (PDF). Federal Communications Commission.
  15. ^ Jackson, David Vail (May 18, 1999). "War Gear's Surprise Attack on Local Cable". Washington Post.
  16. ^ Redding, Rick (July 26, 1999). "Military Channel shooting for deal with A&E". Louisville Business Journal.
  17. ^ de Moraes, Lisa (June 17, 1999). "Overstuffing the Magazine Rack". Washington Post.
  18. ^ Dempsey, John (June 15, 1999). "TVN rings up two buys toward cable commerce". Variety.
  19. ^ Hughes, Dave (December 20, 1999). "Channel 14 Goes AIN". DCRTV.
  20. ^ Stern, Christopher (December 8, 2000). "Univision to Buy Diller TV Stations". Washington Post.
  21. ^ "A Rebirth in Television". Renaissance Network. January 15, 2001. Archived from the original on April 22, 2001.
  22. ^ Hughes, Dave (August 11, 2001). "Telefutura Coming To Channel 14". DCRTV.
  23. ^ "Entravision-UCI Joint Sales Agreement, January 1, 2006". FCC LMS.
  24. ^ Entravision Communications Corporation. "Entravision Communications Corporation Announces New Television Agreements with Univision". www.prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved March 23, 2021.
  25. ^ "Entravision cancels morning newscasts nationwide - Media Moves". December 5, 2015.
  26. ^ "Digital TV Market Listing for WFDC-DT". RabbitEars.Info. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
  27. ^ Schotz, Andrew (October 18, 2011). "WJAL-TV wants to move license from Hagerstown to Silver Spring". The Herald-Mail, Hagerstown, Maryland. Archived from the original on January 15, 2016. Retrieved April 30, 2015.
  28. ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.

External links