Because of its ownership by the network, WRC-TV generally carries the entire NBC network schedule. However, the station airs
NBC Nightly News at 7 p.m. (rather than 6:30 p.m. as with most NBC stations in the
Eastern Time Zone); this is due to an hour-long 6 p.m. newscast. The weekend edition of the network's newscast airs at its usual 6:30 p.m. time slot. 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. WRC-TV served as the production facilities for the original run of
The McLaughlin Group from its premiere in 1982 until May 2008, when the production facilities moved to
Tegna Inc.-owned CBS affiliate and WRC-TV's rival
WUSA and it remained until the original show's ending in 2016.
Sports programming WRC-TV was the over-the-air home of
Washington Commanders (formerly the Washington Redskins) preseason games from
2009 through
2023. Before the Comcast–NBC Universal merger, games were syndicated to over-the-air stations only in
standard definition, with actual rights-holder CSN Mid-Atlantic (later NBC Sports Washington, now
Monumental Sports Network) exclusively airing the high definition broadcast.
News operation WRC-TV presently broadcasts 45 hours, 20 minutes of locally produced newscasts each week (with 7 hours, 34 minutes each weekday; three hours on Saturdays; and hours on Sundays). By 2001, WRC's newscasts had all been rated number one in the market, with some of the success attributed to
Jim Vance and
Doreen Gentzler, who anchored together from 1989 until Vance's death in 2017. Vance had been with Channel 4 since 1969 and was promoted to anchor three years later. In the May 2010 sweeps, it placed first at 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. in total viewers, and first at 6 a.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. in the 25–54 demo. In 1974, WRC-TV adopted the
NewsCenter branding, following the three other NBC-owned stations at the time in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago in adopting the
NewsCenter branding. In 1975, the station adopted
MFSB's song "My Mood" as the closing theme music for the 6 p.m. newscast every Friday, which remains in use by the station today.
Charlie Rose was hired by WRC-TV after his short stint at
KXAS-TV in
Fort Worth, Texas, and hosted the
Charlie Rose Show from its premiere in 1980 until he left the station in 1984 for
CBS News. The station also hired
George Michael as sports anchor, eventually launching the nationally syndicated program
The George Michael Sports Machine, which originated from the studios of WRC-TV from its entire run from 1984 until 2007. In 1982, after 8 years of using the
NewsCenter branding, the news branding was changed to
Channel 4 News. The station added a 5 p.m. newscast in 1984. In 1991, WRC-TV added a morning newscast under the title of
News 4 Today. That same year, between January 14 to October 25, 1991, WRC-TV produced a newscast for independent station
WFTY (channel 50).
7:30 News Headlines was anchored by
Wendy Rieger and sought to cater to an upscale audience. It was the first such news-share program ever announced and the second to air. However, the newscast attracted worse ratings than the show it replaced on channel 50,
The Avengers. It was doomed by low ratings, a poor economy, and the
Gulf War, with the start of that conflict scrambling local news viewing habits merely three days later; as a result, WRC-TV ended the arrangement effective October 25, 1991. On January 14, 2009, WRC-TV and WTTG entered into a
Local News Service (called LNS) agreement in which the two stations pool video and share news helicopter footage. The agreement was similar to ones already made between Fox and NBC owned-and-operated stations in Chicago (WMAQ-TV and
WFLD) and
Philadelphia (
WCAU and
WTXF). WUSA later joined that agreement. In 2012, News Director Camille Edwards announced the station would no longer participate in LNS, but the stations would continue to share the helicopter. In 2016, the station launched its own helicopter, Chopper4. 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 August 12, 2024, WRC-TV's morning newscast moved its starting time back to 4:25 a.m., leaving WTTG as the only station in the Washington market to start its morning newscast at 4 a.m. On that same day, the previously online-only 7:30 p.m. newscast
News 4 Rundown started airing on the station. In 2025, the station established a partnership with the Montgomery County bureau of
The Baltimore Banner. Banner journalists will appear on WRC and its Telemundo sister station.
Notable current on-air staff •
Tony Perkins – anchor •
Eun Yang – anchor
Notable former on-air staff •
Miguel Almaguer – reporter (2006–2009) •
Jess Atkinson – sports anchor (1990–1996) •
Shannon Bream – anchor (2004–2007) •
Nick Charles – sports anchor/reporter (1976–1979) •
Katie Couric – reporter (1987–1989) •
Lindsay Czarniak – sports anchor/reporter (2005–2011) •
Steve Doocy – features reporter (1983–1989) •
Peter Ford – news anchor (1988–1992) •
Doreen Gentzler – anchor (1989–2022) •
Angie Goff – anchor (2011–2018) •
Savannah Guthrie – reporter (2000–2002) •
Robert Hager – reporter (1960s) •
Mike Hambrick – anchor (1982–1985) •
Steve Handelsman – reporter (1984–2017) •
Richard C. Harkness – Washington correspondent for NBC network and local radio/TV news anchor (1942–1970) •
Leon Harris – anchor (2017–2025) •
Jim Hartz – anchor (1977–1979) •
Dan Hellie – sports anchor (2006–2013) •
Cathy Hobbs – anchor/reporter (1994–1997) •
Joe Johns – reporter (1983–1993) •
Veronica Johnson – meteorologist (2000–2016) •
Susan King – anchor/reporter (1983–1987) •
Joe Krebs – anchor/reporter (1980–2012) •
Scott MacFarlane – investigative reporter (2013–2021) •
Suzanne Malveaux – reporter (1996-1999) •
Dave Marash – anchor (1985–1989) •
Marjorie Margolies – reporter (1975–1990) •
Doug McKelway – anchor/reporter (1992–2001) •
Craig Melvin – anchor (2008–2011) •
George Michael – sports anchor/reporter; former host of
The George Michael Sports Machine (1980–2008) •
Wendy Rieger – anchor (1988–2021) •
Bob Ryan – chief meteorologist (1980–2010) •
Jim Rosenfield – anchor (2012–2013) •
Dianna Russini – sports anchor/reporter (2013–2015) •
Willard Scott – NBC page (1950),
Bozo the Clown (1959–1962), weather anchor (1968–1980) •
Sue Simmons – anchor/reporter (1976–1980) •
Jim Vance – anchor (1969–2017) •
Nicole Zaloumis – sports anchor/reporter (2004–2005) ==Technical information==