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WBKI-TV, PSIP virtual channel 34 (UHF digital channel 19), is a CW-affiliated television station serving Louisville, Kentucky, United States that is licensed to Campbellsville. The station is owned by LM Communications, LLC; Block Communications, which owns Fox affiliate WDRB (channel 41) and MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYO (channel 58), operates WBKI-TV under a local marketing agreement. WBKI-TV's former facilities were located within the Kaden Tower on Dutchmans Lane in Louisville's Bowman section (along I-264/US 60/Henry Watterson Expressway). In 2014, all of WBKI-TV's operations were moved to WDRB and WMYO's shared studio facility on West Muhammad Ali Bloulevard (near Route 150) in downtown Louisville (previously, the WDRB/WMYO facilities only housed WBKI-TV's master control and some internal operations); WBKI-TV maintains transmitter facilities located in Raywick. On cable, WBKI-TV is available on Time Warner Cable channel 7 and in high definition on digital channel 914. Even though WBKI-TV has a digital signal of its own, the station's broadcasting radius does not reach the northern portions of the Louisville market. Therefore, the station is simulcast over WMYO's digital subchannels in order to reach the entire market. WBKI-TV's main programming can be seen on UHF channel 51.5 (or virtual channel 34.1 via PSIP) and Movies! can be seen on UHF channel 51.6 (or virtual channel 34.2 via PSIP) from a transmitter in rural northeastern Floyd County, Indiana (northeast of Floyds Knobs). ==History== The station first signed on the air on July 27, 1983 as WGRB. It originally operated as an independent station, serving mainly rural areas on the far southern fringe of the Louisville market. In 1990, the station became the Fox affiliate for this section of the market. Although Louisville's Fox affiliate, WDRB (channel 41), broadcast at the maximum five million watts of power, the station's signal was marginal at best in the southern part of the market. Additionally, cable television service was not widespread in southern sections of the market, thus WDRB was not received at all in those areas. WGRB thus became one of the few known cases in which a separately owned station carried a network that already had an affiliate in the same market (similar to situations such as ABC affiliates WCVB-TV and WMUR-TV in the Boston market). WGRB dropped Fox in 1997 and joined The WB, bringing that fledgling network's programming to the southern portion of the market. However, the main WB affiliate for Louisville, WBNA (channel 21, now an Ion Television affiliate), was a conservative religious station, and its owner, Evangel World Prayer Center, frequently pre-empted most of the network's more risqué programs. Frustrated with the pre-emptions, The WB made WGRB the network's exclusive Louisville outlet in 1998. At the same time, WGRB announced plans to build a new transmitter tower that would be located closer to Louisville, and upgrade its analog signal to a full five million watts of power. The station activated this new, more powerful tower in 1999. Along with an upgraded transmitter, the station changed its call letters to WWWB on November 29, 1999, likely done in tribute to the "dubba-dubba-WB!" jingle that the network utilized at the time in its image campaign. On September 19, 2000, the station changed its calls again to the current WBKI-TV. On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW.〔('Gilmore Girls' meet 'Smackdown'; CW Network to combine WB, UPN in CBS-Warner venture beginning in September ), CNNMoney.com, January 24, 2006.〕〔(UPN and WB to Combine, Forming New TV Network ), ''The New York Times'', January 24, 2006.〕 On March 1, the Cascade Broadcasting Group, then-owner of WBKI-TV, announced that channel 34 would be the market's CW affiliate, becoming one of the first outlets outside of the core CBS Television Stations and Tribune Broadcasting groups to announce an affiliation agreement with the new network. Meanwhile, UPN affiliate WFTE (channel 58, now MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYO) announced it would join another newly created network, MyNetworkTV. It came as no surprise that WBKI-TV was chosen as the CW affiliate, as that network's representatives were on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN affiliates, and WBKI-TV had been one of the strongest WB affiliates in the country. WBKI-TV became a charter CW affiliate when the network launched on September 18, 2006. It was decided that the station would continue using the WBKI-TV call letters to avoid audience confusion and maintain a reference to its Kentuckiana service area. In February 2007, Cascade Broadcasting took over the operations of W24BW (known unofficially as "WYCS") with an option to purchase the station. Cascade filed for bankruptcy in 2008, resulting in WBKI-TV and W24BW being put up for sale at auction; the winning bid was submitted by Fusion Communications. The transaction was approved by Federal Communications Commission (FCC); the deal was finalized 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 in downtown Louisville. In March 2012, Fusion defaulted on a loan from Valley Bank. Since Fusion had pledged WBKI-TV as collateral, Valley seized control of the station and auctioned off its assets to a local buyer on April 6, 2012. WBKI-TV was then acquired that June by LM Communications, a company run by Lexington-based radio station owner Lynn Martin; LM immediately took over the station's operations through a local marketing agreement prior to receiving FCC approval of the deal. Shortly afterward, on June 22, LM announced that it had entered into a local marketing agreement with Block Communications, owner of WDRB and WMYO, in which Block took over WBKI-TV's operations and began sharing select programming with channel 34. LM officially closed on the purchase on November 27. Although most of WBKI-TV's operations remain separate from WDRB and WMYO, certain operations between the station and its two sisters have been merged. With the opening of an additional 11,000 square feet of space at the latter duopoly's Muhammad Ali Boulevard studio facility on May 5, 2014, WBKI-TV will reassign up to 10 employees from the Kaden Tower offices into the shared WDRB/WMYO facility.〔(WDRB celebrates 11,000 square foot expansion with ribbon cutting ceremony ), WDRB, May 5, 2014.〕〔(WDRB celebrates expansion, new newscast announced ), ''Louisville Business First'', May 5, 2014.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「WBKI-TV」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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