WFDC-DT
WFDC-DT, virtual channel 14, is a Univision-owned television station serving the American capital city of Washington, District of Columbia that is licensed to Arlington, Virginia. Owned by the Univision Local Media subsidiary of Univision Communications, it is operated under a local marketing agreement by Entravision Communications, making it sister to Silver Spring, Maryland-licensed Sonlife Broadcasting Network affiliate WJAL and Washington-licensed low-power, Class A UniMás affiliate WMDO-CD. The three stations share studios on Constitution Avenue near the Capitol Building; WFDC shares transmitter facilities with CW affiliate WDCW in the Tenleytown section of Washington's northwest quadrant. WFDC also serves as the de facto Univision outlet for the Baltimore market.
On cable, the station is available on channel 14 on most systems in the Washington area and on channel 11 in Baltimore.
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. From 1968 to 1972, channel 14 was the sister station to WMET-TV in Baltimore, Maryland. 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.Channel 14 was back on the air by 1976 in the form of translator W14AA, relaying Central Virginia Educational Television Corporation's WNVT from Annandale, Virginia. CVETC attempted to have the full-powered channel 14 allocation moved to Fairfax, but this request was denied. What was to become WNVC was constructed on channel 56 instead, and upon its sign-on in June 1981 W14AA was no longer necessary. CVETC received special approval to broadcast Congressional hearings in the interim; later in the year, the station was sold to Los Cerezos Television Co., who converted it to an affiliate of the Spanish International Network. This station moved to channel 48 in 1989 and is today WMDO-CD.
WFDC station history
A new station on channel 14 signed on as WTMW on August 3, 1993; the call letters came from the initials of the station's owner, Theodore M. White. From 1997 to May 1999, WTMW aired programming from America's Store, a discount shopping channel operated by the Home Shopping Network.In May 1999, WTMW began airing the new Military Channel. 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 broadcast reruns of old sitcoms and infomercials. The channel changed affiliations 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 Communications and its call letters were changed to WFDC. Univision already had a Washington affiliate on channel 47, Entravision Communications' WMDO-CA, so WFDC instead became one of the first full-powered stations of Univision's new network TeleFutura, now known as UniMás.
On January 1, 2006, Univision Communications entered into a 16-year joint sales agreement with Entravision. Under the agreement, the Univision affiliation for the Washington market was passed to WFDC in return for Entravision taking over its operation and advertising sales. WMDO-CA switched networks to TeleFutura on the same day. WMDO-CD and WFDC are to remain with their respective networks until the agreement's expiration on December 31, 2021, and WMDO-CD automatically regains the Univision affiliation if the agreement expires or is terminated early.
On April 3, 2014, Katz Broadcasting announced plans to multicast Grit and Escape on WFDC's DT3 and DT4 subchannels. The two networks began broadcasting on August 18, 2014. Escape was replaced by Katz's Bounce TV on September 30, 2017.
Digital television
Digital channels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:| Channel | Video | Aspect | PSIP Short Name | Programming |
| 14.1 | 720p | WFDC-DT | Main WFDC-DT programming / Univision | |
| 14.2 | 480i | GET-TV | GetTV | |
| 14.3 | 480i | GRIT | Grit TV | |
| 14.4 | 480i | BOUNCE | Bounce TV |
WFDC does not carry WMDO-CD on a subchannel due to separate legal ownership; although WFDC is managed by Entravision, the license is held by Univision. In 2001, Entravision purchased WJAL for the sole purpose of moving it from Hagerstown, Maryland to Silver Spring to take over as a full-market UniMás affiliate, although they were unsuccessful. WJAL was eventually able to relocate to Silver Spring as a result of the 2016–17 television spectrum reallocation, although it currently airs the SonLife Broadcasting Network instead.
Analog-to-digital conversion
WFDC shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 14, on June 12, 2009, the official date in 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. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 14.News operation
After switching from TeleFutura to Univision, the station continued its news department. It broadcast 6 hours of news on weekdays and 2 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 cancelled the morning newscasts of all of its stations in the United States. The last show aired December 7, 2015.