Operating from 1963 to 1972 (using the WFAN-TV call sign from 1968 to 1972), it was the first television station in the United States to orient its entire programming to an African-American audience,[2]: 1  along the lines of co-owned WOOK radio.

In 1953, Richard Eaton's United Broadcasting Company, owners of WOOK (1340 AM), WFAN (100.3 FM) and Rockville–based WINX, among other outlets in the mid-Atlantic states, filed for television channels 18 in Baltimore and 50 in Washington.

[5] WOOK-TV would launch from WOOK radio's studio facility in the Chillum Castle Manor subdivision, on 1st Place, NE.

It missed another launch date, in February, in part due to equipment issues and also because it had a problem to sort out in the Black community.

The station's production department counted among its clients Budweiser, Safeway, Sinclair Oil, Newport cigarettes and Speed Queen washers and dryers.

[10] On March 1, 1967, the Baltimore station, with the call letters WMET-TV and having been moved to channel 24 in a 1961 allocation revision, began telecasting, with plans to carry 80 percent of WOOK-TV's programming.

[2]: 19  Also in 1967, WMET-TV (moved to channel 24 in an allocation revision six years earlier), the Baltimore station, finally began broadcasting.

Early the next year, Channel 14 also added weekly hours in Italian and Spanish, and on February 14, it changed call letters from WOOK-TV to WFAN-TV, matching Eaton's other Washington station, Spanish-language FM outlet WFAN 100.3.

[17] (Washington Community would eventually win the 1340 frequency held by WOOK radio, with the result being the launch of WYCB in August 1978.)

[19] The February 27 edition of the Washington Post, as well as the next day's issue of Broadcasting magazine, carried a full-page "In Memoriam" ad for WFAN-TV.

The ad, taken out by Eaton, diagnosed channel 14 as being "choked to death literally because of lack of power to cover greater Washington", because of the failure of a common tower site for D.C. television stations in 1966 and the hearing-related freeze on later facility improvements, and revealed that in nearly nine years of operation, the television station had lost $1.45 million—$153,000 of that in 1971 alone.

[28][29] CVETC attempted to have the full-powered channel 14 allocation moved to Fairfax, noting that the current transmitter at Arlington often came in the back of Northern Virginia antennas aimed toward Washington,[30] but this request was denied.

[32] After the FCC gave its approval to feed translators by satellite, W14AA returned to air as the Washington affiliate of SIN (now known as Univision).