| Louisville, Kentucky | |
|---|---|
| Branding | WBNA 21 |
| Slogan | Kentuckiana's Family Station |
| Channels | Digital: 8 (VHF) Virtual: 21 (PSIP) |
| Affiliations | Ion Television qubo (DT2) GOD TV/local worship (DT3) RTV (DT4) |
| Owner | Evangel World Prayer Center (Word Broadcasting Network, Inc.) |
| First air date | April 2, 1986 |
| Call letters' meaning | Word Broadcasting Network Association |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 21 (1986-2009) |
| Former affiliations | Religious independent (1986-1995) The WB (1995-1998) PAX TV (1998-2005) i: Independent Television (2005-2007) |
| Transmitter power | 27 kW (digital) |
| Height | 200 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 73692 |
| Website | www.wbna-21.com/ wbna.rbm.tv/ (Site for The Light subchannel) |
WBNA (Channel 21) is an affiliate of the Ion Television network, located in Louisville, Kentucky and broadcasting over digital channel 8. WBNA is owned by Evangel World Prayer Center, an Assemblies of God (Pentecostal) megachurch in Louisville. On Louisville area cable systems, the station has a uniform channel slot on Channel 21 on both the dominant Comcast and Insight systems.
With the exception of CW affiliate WBKI's main signal on digital channel 19 (PSIP 34) (and not counting its low-power Channel 28 signal to serve Louisville proper), WBNA is the only full-power broadcaster in the Louisville market whose tower is not located at the Kentuckiana tower farm in Floyds Knobs, Indiana. WBNA instead transmits from a tower 15 miles (24 km) directly south of Louisville, off Oakcrest Drive in Shepherdsville. The station is also only one of two Louisville stations to broadcast in the digital era on a VHF channel, along with WHAS-TV (Channel 11).
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The station signed on April 2, 1986 as an independent station offering mostly local and national religious programming. It gradually mixed in some secular programs as well, mostly old movies. In 1995, it became Louisville's charter affiliate of The WB Network.
However, WBNA felt chagrin at The WB's decision to pick up several programs that offended the fundamentalist and Pentecostal sensibilities of channel 21's viewership, such as nighttime soap Savannah, Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Unhappily Ever After. WBNA aired syndicated or religious programming instead in these time slots. The WB soon regretted its decision to affiliate with a conservative religious station, and it began looking for a new affiliate in Louisville. In 1997, Campbellsville-based WGRB (channel 34, now WBKI) previously the Fox affiliate for the southern portion of the Louisville market, switched to The WB. At the same time, it announced plans to build a new tower (activated in 2000) that would not only improve its coverage in Louisville, but give it at least grade B coverage in most of Kentucky. At the end of the 1997-98 season, The WB yanked its affiliation from WBNA, leaving channel 34 to become the sole WB affiliate for Louisville. WBNA then became a charter affiliate of the new family-friendly PAX TV network, later i and now Ion, in September 1998.
WBNA is unusual in that the station is only affiliated with Ion Television, rather than being owned by the network. Nearly all Ion stations are owned and operated by ION Media Networks. This may be due to Evangel's ownership and commitment to the network, and the fact that the station is licensed to Louisville itself rather than an outer ring suburb as is the usual case with Ion stations. Because of this, WBNA is free to program additional networks on its bandwidth (as described below) rather than being beholden to the master Ion schedules.
The station's digital signal is multiplexed.
Digital channels
| Channel | Display | Programming |
|---|---|---|
| 21.1 | 720p | main WBNA programming / Ion |
| 21.2 | 480i | qubo |
| 21.3 | 480i | GOD TV/The Light |
| 21.4 | 480i | RTV Louisville |
Unlike many of Ion Television's owned and operated stations which only carry the three Ion-transmitted networks, WBNA also carries Daystar and GOD TV affiliations on additional subchannels since it only affiliates with Ion. Daystar programming was previously carried on WBNA-DT1 during overnight and some daytime hours in place of Ion's paid programming and programs such as the weekend Knife Show series.
In late July 2009, WBNA replaced the Ion-provided feed of the Worship Network on 21.4 with a Retro Television Network digital subchannel.[1]
In October 2009 WBNA launched "The Light" on their DT6 subchannel, which features local church services and other worship programming intermixed within the Daystar schedule, especially periods where Daystar airs over 21.1.
Several changes occurred in late April 2011 in order to accommodate WBNA upgrading 21.1 to broadcast in 720p high definition, with programming from both Daystar and ION Life (and thus subchannels 21.5 and 21.6) being dropped and programming from The Light and GOD TV being merged together on 21.3. GOD TV and The Light programming now airs on 21.1 in hours where Daystar programming previously aired, while in some early afternoon hours 21.1 carries RTV programming.
WBNA shut down analog transmissions on June 12, 2009.[2] The station remained on its pre-transition channel 8.[3] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display WBNA's virtual channel as 21.
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