| Campbellsville/Louisville, Kentucky | |
|---|---|
| Branding | WBKI The CW WHAS 11 News |
| Slogan | TV to Talk About Coverage You Can Count On (newscasts) |
| Channels | Digital: 19 (UHF) Virtual: 34 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 34.1 The CW 34.2 VasalloVision |
| Owner | Fusion Communications (operated through LMA by Belo Corporation) (Louisville TV Licenses, LLC) |
| First air date | July 27, 1983 |
| Call letters' meaning | The WB and KentuckIana (referring to former affiliation and region served) |
| Sister station(s) | WKYI-CD, WWJS-CA, WHAS-TV |
| Former callsigns | WGRB (1983-1999) WWWB (1999-2000) |
| Former channel number(s) | 34 (UHF analog, 1983-2009) 28 WBKI-CA & 34 WBKI-LD Louisville |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1983-1990) Fox (1990-1997) The WB (1997-2006) |
| Transmitter power | 1,000 kW |
| Height | 341 m |
| Class | DT |
| Facility ID | 25173 |
| Website | cwlouisville.com |
WBKI-TV is the CW-affiliated television station for the Kentuckiana area of North-Central Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Licensed to Campbellsville, Kentucky, the station broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 19 (or virtual channel 34.1 via PSIP) from a transmitter in Raywick, Kentucky. It can also be seen on Insight channel 7 and in high definition on digital channel 914. Owned by Fusion Communications, the station is operated through a local marketing agreement (LMA) by the Belo Corporation making it a sister outlet to ABC affiliate WHAS-TV.
WBKI has studios within the Kaden Tower on Dutchmans Lane (in Louisville's Bowman section) along I-265/US 60/Henry Watterson Expressway. Some support operations are based at WHAS-TV's studios on West Chestnut Street in Downtown Louisville. Syndicated programming on this station includes TMZ on TV, The Insider, Judge Karen's Court, and The Tyra Banks Show among others.
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On WBKI-DT2 is the Spanish language network VasalloVision which cannot be seen on any digital cable providers at the current time.
| Channels | Name | Video | Aspect | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 34.1 | WBKI-DT | 1080i | 16:9 | Main WBKI-TV programming / The CW |
| 34.2 | WBKI-DT2 | 480i | 4:3 | VasalloVision |
The station signed-on July 27, 1983 as WGRB and aired an analog signal on UHF channel 34. It was a small Independent outlet serving a rural area on the far southern fringe of the Louisville market. It became a Fox affiliate in 1990. Although Louisville's Fox affiliate, WDRB, broadcast at the maximum five million watts of power, it didn't get much penetration into the southern part of the market, and cable didn't get much penetration into the area at the time.
The station switched to The WB in 1997, fulfilling a similar role in regards to the main WB outlet for Louisville, WBNA. However, WBNA was a conservative religious station, and its owner, Evangel World Prayer Center, frequently pre-empted most of the network's more risqué shows. The WB soon had enough, and in 1998 made WGRB the sole WB outlet for Louisville.
At the same time, WGRB announced plans to build a new transmission tower closer to Louisville and upgrade its analog signal to a full five million watts. The station activated this new, more powerful tower in 1999. Along with updated transmitter, it adopted WWWB as its call sign on November 29, 1999 likely in tribute to the "dubba-dubba-WB!" jingle the network utilized at the time. On September 19, 2000, the calls changed again to the current WBKI-TV.
On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced the two networks would end broadcasting and merge. The new combined service would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of corporate parents "C"BS (the parent company of UPN) and the "W"arner Bros. unit of Time Warner. On March 1, the Cascade Broadcasting Group, then-owner of WBKI, announced that channel 34 would be joining the CW. It was one of the first outlets outside of the core CBS and Tribune Company-owned stations to announce an affiliation agreement with the new network. [1] Meanwhile, UPN affiliate WFTE (now WMYO) announced it would join another newly created network, MyNetworkTV. It came as no surprise that WBKI was chosen as the CW affiliate, however. That network's officials were on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN affiliates, and WBKI had been one of the strongest
On September 18, 2006, WBKI became part of The CW at the network's launch. It was decided to continue using WBKI as its call letters to avoid audience confusion and refer to "Kentuckiana". In February 2007, Cascade Broadcasting took over the operations of W24BW (known unofficially as "WYCS") with an option to buy.
The company went bankrupt in 2008, resulting in WBKI and W24BW being put up for sale at an auction, with the winning bid submitted by Fusion Communications. The transaction cleared the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the new ownership became effective in August 2009. Later that year, Fusion moved the station's operations from its longtime facility on Alliant Avenue in St. Matthews to the Kaden Tower. [2] At some point in time, WBKI added VasalloVision to a new second digital subchannel. [3] In 2011, the Belo Corporation (owner of WHAS) took over this station's operations through a local marketing agreement. Both stations retained separate studios, unlike most other similar arrangements established between two outlets. However, WHAS handles some support operations for WBKI.
WBKI's transmitter is located 60 miles south of Downtown Louisville. This is necessary so it can stay close enough to its city of license, Campbellsville, to provide that area city grade coverage. Under FCC rules, a station's transmitter must be no further than 15 miles from its city of license. As a result, the station's main transmitter only provides "rimshot" coverage of Louisville itself despite its power and height. It is all but unviewable over-the-air in much of the Indiana side of the market, even in digital. To make up for this shortfall in coverage, WBKI set up a Class A repeater on channel 28 at the Kentuckiana tower farm northeast of Floyds Knobs, Indiana shortly after getting The WB affiliation.
WBKI was the first Louisville-market station to go digital-exclusive. Before Cascade was forced into bankruptcy, the company asked for permission to move WBKI's city of license to Bardstown. Presumably, this change would have allowed it to build a new tower closer to Louisville and shut down the channel 28 repeater. However, the station currently plans to keep its license in Campbellsville and upgrade WBKI-CA to digital as well. The repeater was not mandated by federal law to cease analog transmission in 2009 because it was not a full-powered outlet. The FCC has provided Class A and low-powered stations an additional two years past the original digital transition deadline in order to switch to digital.
However, current listings with the FCC only mention the existence of WBKI-CA and the station is licensed to a separate entity, Word of God Fellowship. It is unknown if programming from WBKI is still simulcasted on the repeater.
Due to its transmitter location being roughly halfway between Louisville and Lexington, WBKI claims the largest coverage area of any station in Kentucky. The station provides at least secondary coverage (Grade B signal or better) from the Tennessee border to Southern Indiana. This area includes portions of the Bowling Green and Lexington markets. Consequently, WBKI maintained solid coverage on most cable systems in these areas for most of its tenure with The WB. For all intents and purposes, it was Lexington's default WB affiliate, and even operated a "virtual channel" on primary cable systems in that area with separate identifications. With the launch of The CW, WBKI was dropped from most cable providers in the Bowling Green and Lexington areas since that network airs on subcarriers of WBKO and WKYT-TV respectively. It can still be seen over-the-air in much of the Lexington area and on about twenty other cable systems in Central Kentucky. The station is also available on cable in three counties in Tennessee which are part of the Nashville market.
WBKI currently airs the second hour (from 7 until 8) of the three hour-long nationally syndicated morning show, The Daily Buzz. For several years, the station produced a local weekday morning entertainment and lifestyle show known as Louisville Live This Morning. Airing in a magazine-type format for an hour, the broadcast could be seen from 10 until 11. At one point in time, WBKI also carried a newscast weeknights at 5:30 called The CW World Report offering national and international coverage.
That half-hour program was produced by Fusion Communications' sister operation Independent News Network and originated from studios on Tremont Avenue in Davenport, Iowa. Through a news share agreement, WHAS continues to produce a nightly prime time newscast on WBKI. Known as WHAS 11 News at 10 on WBKI, the broadcast airs for thirty minutes from the WHAS studios. It competes with a nightly 45 minute newscast seen at the same time on Fox affiliate WDRB.
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