WBKI (TV)
FCC | |
---|---|
Facility ID | 34167 |
ERP | 860 kW |
HAAT | 390.4 m (1,280.8 ft) |
Transmitter coordinates | 38°21′1″N 85°50′57″W / 38.35028°N 85.84917°W |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Website | www |
WBKI (channel 58) is a
Block formerly operated a CW affiliate with the
History
The station first signed on the air on March 16, 1994, as WFTE, with the call letters being an abbreviation of its channel number. Branded on-air as "Big 58", it originally operated as an independent station. It was originally licensed to Salem, Indiana businessman Don Martin Jr. Martin sold the license in 1993 to another Salem businessman, Tom Ledford, who worked with WDRB to program the station under one of the earliest local marketing agreements in existence. WFTE also aired the police procedural series NYPD Blue during the 1994–95 season as ABC affiliate WHAS-TV (channel 11) declined to carry the program, as many ABC affiliates in the Southern United States did when it premiered, but would later cede to viewer and advertiser pressure to carry it when the show gained traction in the national ratings.
The station became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN), when the network launched on January 16, 1995. Block Communications purchased the station outright in 2001, creating the first television duopoly in the Louisville market; that year, the station was rebranded as "Great 58," becoming one of the few full-time UPN affiliates not to incorporate any network branding during its tenure with the network.
On January 24, 2006,
On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of MyNetworkTV, a new "sixth" network that would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division 20th Television. MyNetworkTV was created to compete against another upstart network that would launch at the same time that September, The CW (an amalgamated network that originally consisted primarily of UPN and The WB's higher-rated programs) as well as to give UPN and WB stations that were not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates another option besides converting to independent stations.[4][5] Fifteen days after WBKI's affiliation deal with The CW was announced, on March 15, 2006, WFTE signed a deal to affiliate with MyNetworkTV.[6] Block Communications filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to change the station's call letters to WMYO (to reflect its new network affiliation, standing for "MyNetworkTV Ohio Valley") on July 7, 2006; the station joined the network when it launched on September 5, 2006.[7]
In early 2011, the
On June 1, 2012, WMYO, WDRB and their respective subchannels were pulled from the market's major cable provider
On February 12, 2018, the station took the WBKI-TV callsign formerly associated with the Campbellsville-licensed CW affiliate which existed from 1983 to 2017 on channel 34 and had their programming merged onto after WBKI's sale of spectrum in October 2017; its channels were numbered 34 in the interim period. The same day, Block downgraded the former WMYO schedule onto its DT3 subchannel, making The CW schedule the primary affiliation and ended their use of the defunct channel 34 allocation. This solved an issue where DirecTV and Dish refused to carry the new form of WBKI and its CW schedule as a subchannel, though WMYO's carriage for the MyNetworkTV subchannel on those providers was sacrificed as a result (but retained as-is on area cable providers). Block coordinated with New Albany Broadcasting, the owners of WKYI-CD (channel 24) to finesse the callsign change; WKYI took the calls WBKI-CD temporarily in November 2017 (with the WKYI calls moving to New Albany's radio station on 1600 AM until being abandoned in August 2022), then exchanged those calls for the calls of WMYO on February 12, thus channel 24 now holds the call letters WMYO-CD, preventing any re-use (or at least allowing New Albany and Block to sell them at a premium to another out-of-market station). The "-TV" suffix was dropped on February 19.[9]
Programming
WBKI-DT3 is utilized as an 'overflow' station for WDRB's newscasts (especially the 10 p.m. newscast), when Fox Sports programming overlays the timeslot. Both WBKI-DT1 and WBKI-DT3 carry an alert map display denoted with WDRB's news logo on the bottom of the screen during severe weather situations affecting the Kentuckiana region, and may break into both stations' programming in rare weather or news situations.
Sports programming
WMYO formerly carried Indiana Hoosiers and Big Ten Conference football and men's basketball games; this ended when the conference moved all of its non-network games to the cable- and satellite-exclusive Big Ten Network when it launched in 2007. WMYO also carried some Notre Dame Fighting Irish football games televised by NBC in lieu of WAVE (channel 3), during situations in which the games conflicted with the station's telecasts of Southeastern Conference college football games (which were syndicated by corporate parent Raycom Media's sports division Raycom Sports) until Raycom's contract with the SEC ended in 2009. It also broadcast Indianapolis Colts preseason games, home and away. In 2017, WMYO carried eight Louisville City FC soccer matches as part of their three-station broadcast deal with WDRB and WBNA.
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's signal is
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming | ATSC 1.0 host |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
58.1 | 720p | 16:9 |
WBKI-CW | The CW[13] | WAVE |
58.2 | 480i | COZI | Cozi TV | ||
58.3 | 720p | My_TV | MyNetworkTV | WDRB | |
58.4 | 480i | Movies! | Movies! | WLKY | |
58.5 | Mystery | Ion Mystery | WDRB | ||
58.6 | Defy | Defy TV |
The station launched its second
On July 17, 2012, WMYO began carrying a simulcast of
On April 13, 2017, the FCC announced that WBKI had successfully sold their spectrum in the 2016
Analog-to-digital conversion
WBKI (as WMYO) discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over
ATSC 3.0 lighthouse
Channel | Short name | Programming |
---|---|---|
3.1 | WAVE HD | NBC (WAVE) |
11.1 | WHAS-HD | ABC (WHAS-TV) |
21.1 | WBNA-DT | Independent |
32.1 | WLKY-HD | CBS (WLKY) |
41.1 | WDRB-4K | Fox (WDRB) |
58.1 | WBKI-4K | The CW |
Out-of-market coverage
In the
has the MyNetworkTV affiliation in Bowling Green.References
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WBKI". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ "CW network to replace WB, UPN in September - Jan. 24, 2006". money.cnn.com. Retrieved February 1, 2024.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 1, 2024.
- ^ "News Corp. to launch new mini-network for UPN stations". USA Today. February 22, 2006. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
- ^ "Nexttv | Programming| Business | Multichannel Broadcasting + Cable | www.nexttv.com". NextTV. February 1, 2024. Retrieved February 1, 2024.
- ^ Romano, Allison (March 15, 2006). "My Network TV Signs 13 More Affils". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved August 11, 2013.
- ^ "Courier Journal". courier-journal.com. Retrieved February 1, 2024.
- ^ Farrell, Mike (May 31, 2012). "Louisville Stations Could Go Dark on TWC; WDRB, WMYO Face Midnight Deadline". Multichannel News. Retrieved June 1, 2012.
- ^ "Call Sign History (WBKI)". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved February 20, 2018.
- ^ "RabbitEars.Info". rabbitears.info.
- ^ "RabbitEars.Info". rabbitears.info.
- ^ "RabbitEars.Info". rabbitears.info.
- ^ "TV Schedule".
- ^ Newkirk, Jake (July 16, 2012). "WBKI coverage area expands greatly with addition to WMYO; CW programming in Louisville market can now be seen over the air on channel 58.3". Jake's DTV Blog. Archived from the original on October 24, 2013. Retrieved July 17, 2012.
- ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
- ^ "RabbitEars.Info". rabbitears.info.
- ^ "South Central Rural Telecommunications Cooperative" (PDF). www.scrtc.com. Archived from the original on June 26, 2015.
- ^ "Cable Lineup" (PDF). glasgow-ky.com.
- ^ "Home". CNHI. Retrieved February 1, 2024.