WTTG

WTTG (channel 5) is a television station in Washington, D.C. It is owned and operated by the Fox network through its Fox Television Stations division, and is sister to MyNetworkTV station WDCA (channel 20). WTTG and WDCA share studios on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, Maryland. Through a channel sharing agreement, the stations transmit using WTTG's spectrum from a tower also located in Bethesda on River Road at the site of WDCA's former studio facilities.

WTTG's signal is rebroadcast on a low-power digital translator station, W24ES-D, in Moorefield, West Virginia (which is owned by Valley TV Cooperative, Inc.).

The station traces its history to May 19, 1945, when television set and equipment manufacturer Allen B. DuMont founded W3XWT, the second experimental station in the nation's capital (after NBC's W3XNB, forerunner to WRC-TV). Later in 1945, DuMont Laboratories began a series of experimental coaxial cable hookups between W3XWT and its other television station, WABD (now WNYW) in New York City. These hookups were the beginning of the DuMont Television Network, the world's first commercial television network. DuMont began regular network service in 1946. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted a 90-day commercial license – the first in the nation's capital – to WTTG that November 29, and the first program that aired on the station was a Washington Lions hockey game from Uline Arena on December 10, sponsored by the U.S. Rubber Company. It continued using the experimental 5 kW transmitter of W3XWT until late in 1947, when work had progressed enough on its final transmission site to move there at low power; DuMont did not complete construction and begin full-time, full-power operation until June 1949.

The station was named for Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr., the DuMont Network's chief engineer and a close friend of Dr. DuMont.

Like WABD and DuMont's other owned-and-operated station, WDTV in Pittsburgh, WTTG was far more successful than the network as a whole. In 1956, after DuMont shut down network operations, WTTG and WABD became independent stations and were spun off from DuMont Laboratories as the DuMont Broadcasting Corporation (WDTV was sold to Westinghouse Electric Corporation the previous year; it is now CBS owned-and-operated station KDKA-TV). DuMont later changed its name to Metropolitan Broadcasting to distance itself from its former parent company.

In 1958 Washington investor John Kluge bought controlling interest in Metropolitan Broadcasting from Paramount Pictures and installed himself as its chairman. He changed the company's name to Metromedia in 1961. Goldsmith sat on Metromedia's board of directors for over a quarter-century. Channel 5 gained a sister station on radio when Metromedia purchased WASH (97.1 FM) in 1968. At first, WTTG ran on a low budget. However, in the late 1960s, it benefited from Metromedia's aggressiveness in acquiring top syndicated programming, giving it a significant leg up on WDCA, which signed on in 1966.

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, older movies, local newscasts and locally produced programs. During this time period, and well into the early 1990s, WTTG was the flagship station for the Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball team as well as Big East Conference men's basketball. Its main claim to fame was Panorama, an afternoon talk show hosted by Maury Povich and John Willis.

When cable television began in the 1970s, WTTG became a regional superstation. At one point it appeared on every cable provider in Maryland and Virginia, as well as most of Delaware and in parts of West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania.