WNBW was also the second of the five original NBC-owned television stations to sign-on, behind WNBT in New York City and ahead of WNBQ in Chicago, WNBK in Cleveland and KNBH in Los Angeles.

On October 18, 1954, the television station's call sign changed to the present WRC-TV to match its radio sisters.

[7] The second presidential debate between candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon was broadcast from the station's studios on October 7, 1960.

Before Eisenhower spoke, Sarnoff pushed a button, which converted the previously black and white signal into color.

From the opening of its Nebraska Avenue facility in 1958 through 2020, WRC-TV housed NBC News' Washington bureau, out of which the network's long-running political affairs program Meet the Press was based.

[18] Under the agreement, WZDC shares WRC-TV's physical signal as a subchannel would and is managed with its own virtual channel number and license.

Despite being the originating station of Meet the Press for most of the show's history, it airs on a 90-minute delay at 10:30 a.m., competing head-to-head with CBS' Face the Nation.

WRC-TV previously housed It's Academic, which premiered in 1961 and is the longest-running game show in television history according to the Guinness Book of World Records (as of October 29, 2022, it is now aired on PBS member station WETA-TV).

Sam and Friends, Jim Henson's late-night precursor to Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, got its start on WRC-TV on May 9, 1955.

[21][22] Michael Randall commissioned the news theme for WRC-TV entitled "NewsCenter Theme", which was used by the station until 1986; also, Charlie Rose was hired by WRC-TV after his short stint at KXAS-TV in Dallas and hosted the Charlie Rose Show from its premiere in 1980 until he left the station in 1984 for CBS News.

In 1989, the station used a new promotional campaign "We Work Well Together", produced by Music Oasis, which was also adopted as its news theme until 1992.

In 1994, WRC-TV expanded a late weekday newscast from 4:30 p.m. to a full-hour at 4 p.m. 615 Music remixed the theme in 1997, this time under the title of "Working For You".

The theme was also used by other NBC affiliates (including WHO-TV in Des Moines, Iowa, KPLC in Lake Charles, Louisiana, WPSD-TV in Paducah, Kentucky, and WEAU in Eau Claire, Wisconsin).

The agreement is similar to ones already made between Fox and NBC owned-and-operated stations in Chicago (WMAQ-TV and WFLD) and Philadelphia (WCAU and WTXF).

On April 22, 2010, WRC became the fourth (and final) English-language television station in the Washington, D.C. market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition.

Starting with News 4 Today on February 27, 2023, WRC-TV's newscasts moved to a new studio that formerly housed Meet the Press, where an entirely new set debuted for the first time in almost 13 years.

On September 9, 2024, WRC-TV's morning newscast moved its starting time back to 4:25 am, leaving WTTG as the only station in the Washington market to start its morning newscast at 4 a.m. WRC-TV ended regular programming on its analog signal, on VHF channel 4, 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.