WTTG, "FOX5 DC" is an owned and operated TV station of the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is located in Washington, D.C. and serves Northern Virginia, Maryland, the Martinsburg, West Virginia area and Washington, D.C. from a studio and transmitter located in the Tenleytown section of Washington, D.C.. WTTG's sister station is UPN affiliate WDCA channel 20, forming a duopoly owned by Fox Television Stations Group.
History
The station traces its history to May 19, 1945, when Allen B. DuMont founded W3XWT, an experimental station. On January 3, 1947, it received the first commercial television license in the nation's capital as WTTG named for Thomas T. Goldsmith, the station's first chief engineer and DuMont's best friend. The station became part of the DuMont Television Network. WTTG had considerable local success, unlike DuMont.
In 1956, after DuMont ended network operations, the station was sold to Metromedia. By the 1970s, WTTG was one of the leading independent stations in the country, running a broad lineup of cartoons, off-network sitcoms, first-run syndicated shows, old movies, local news and locally produced programs. Its main claim to fame was Panorama, an afternoon talk show hosted by John Willis, and Maury Povich. Even after WDCA signed on in the late 1960s, WTTG continued to be the leading independent station.
When cable television began in the 1970s, WTTG became a regional superstation. Cable companies distributed WTTG as far south as North Carolina, as far east as Delaware and throughout Maryland and Virginia. Though not distributed as widely as it once was the popularity of WTTG has kept it available on cable on several Maryland and Virginia cable systems and to this day serves as the default Fox affiliate for the Harrisonburg, Virginia (where a low-power translator is present) and Salisbury, Maryland TV markets.
Metromedia owned the station until 1986 when Rupert Murdoch, after buying 20th Century Fox, purchased the Metromedia television stations to form a basis for the Fox network by 1987. WTTG has since become a Fox owned-and-operated station (O&O), but has retained consistently high ratings, a rarity for a Fox affiliate. Initially, its programming was similar to what it had run as a true independent station. Then, in the summer of 1990, the morning cartoon block was ended in favor of Fox 5 Morning News. It is the second Fox O&O to have a morning newscast and the fourth or fifth Fox affiliate with morning news.
In the 1990s, Fox 5 added more syndicated talk shows and reality shows. It continued to air afternoon cartoons from Fox Kids until the fall of 2001, when they moved to WDCA (only to be cut to Saturdays everywhere in 2002). On October 29, 2001, WDCA became WTTG's sister station when Fox bought it from Viacom. Fox 5 continued to run top rated off-network sitcoms in the evenings. It recently added an evening 5 to 6 PM Newscast.
Today Fox 5 has over 40 hours a week of local news.
Newscast Schedule
- FOX 5 Morning News at 5AM
- Steve Chenevey, Allison Seymour "News"
- Tony Perkins "Weather""
- Julie Wright "Traffic" along with Michele Sigona in SkyFox
- FOX 5 Morning News at 6am
- FOX 5 Morning News
- Lark McCarthy, Mike Garjulio "News"
- Tony Perkins "Weather"
- Julie Wright "Traffic" along with Michele Sigona in SkyFox
- FOX 5 News at 10
- Same as above minus traffic
- FOX 5 News at 11pm
- Primarily used when an NFL/MLB game or a movie runs over. If the event shown will last longer than 1am, the newcast will be shown on sister station, DCA20
Logos
WTTG logo from 1981 to 1984
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WTTG logo from 1984 to 1986
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WTTG logo from 1986 to 1987
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WTTG logo from 1987 to 1993
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WTTG logo from 1997 to 1998
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The Present Fox 5 logo, used since 1998
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References
External links
The content of this page is retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTTG under GFDL
