WKYT TV

History

WKYT signed on September 30, 1957 as WKXP-TV, owned by Community Broadcast Partners, a local group headed by Frederic Gregg, Charles Wright and Harry Feingold. It was a primary CBS affiliate, sharing ABC with WLEX-TV.

After only one year, Community Broadcast Partners merged with what eventually became Taft Broadcasting. The new owners changed the calls to the current WKYT-TV. Taft also switched the station's primary affiliation to ABC, relegating CBS to secondary status. This was a very unusual arrangement for a two-station market, especially one as small as Lexington. In most two-station markets, ABC, as the smallest and weakest network, was relegated to secondary clearances on one or both of the existing stations. However, ABC president Leonard Goldenson had been friends with the Taft family for many years, and it is likely that the Tafts wanted to get their new purchase in line with most of their other stations (including company flagship WKRC-TV in Cincinnati).

Kentucky Central Insurance Company bought the station in 1967. When WBLG-TV (channel 62, now WTVQ-DT, channel 36) signed on in 1968, WKYT opted to return to CBS full-time. In 1985, Kentucky Central bought WKYH-TV in Hazard, changed its calls to WYMT-TV and made it a semi-satellite of WKYT. While WYMT has its own studios in Hazard and airs its own newscasts, some internal operations are shared with WKYT. WKYT was the first, and at present only, Lexington station with any presence at all in the eastern portion of the market.

In 1993, after a protracted fraud investigation forced Kentucky Central into bankruptcy, WKYT and WYMT were acquired by Gray Television. At this stage, WKYT was known on air as 'KYT' instead of WKYT.

On August 21, 2007, WKYT began broadcasting its "CWKYT" second digital subchannel in high definition. This made it one of a handful of stations in the country who transmit their main channel and at least one subchannel in HD. However, although both CBS and The CW prefer their programming be broadcast at 1080i resolution, WKYT's two HD channels were transmitted over-the-air in 720p in order to minimize the loss in image quality (feeds to cable providers use the full 1080i). Since the move to digital channel 36 in September 2010, CWKYT's over-the-air transmission reverted to 4:3 SD, although the digital cable feed remained in HD and WKYT's main channel remained in 720p. As of June 18, 2013, WKYT's main signal has been upgraded to full 1080i HD and The CW Lexington signal was upgraded to 720p HD.

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

WKYT-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 27, on April 16, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 13. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 27. On August 22, 2009, WKYT-DT filed a petition of rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move to digital UHF channel 36 (once used by WTVQ with its analog operations) due to reception issues. The FCC issued a Report & Order approved the petition on October 22. On December 12, 2009, WKYT filed a minor change application for a construction permit, reflecting the channel change. On January 11, 2010, the FCC approved the permit. The switchover to the UHF signal took place on September 1 at 1 p.m.

CW Lexington

"The CW Lexington" is a CW-affiliated digital subchannel, which airs on digital channel 27.2 and is available on cable on Charter Spectrum channel 5; the subchannel was originally branded as "UPN Lexington" (or "UKYT") and served as Lexington's UPN affiliate until September 2006. That month, the subchannel was rebranded as "CWKYT" (a portmanteau of the subchannel's affiliated network and the station's callsign) until January 2013. Until October 2006, Louisville WB affiliate (now CW affiliate) WBKI was available on Lexington cable systems; WBKI was later dropped from Insight systems in the Lexington area, to accommodate for the new CW. CW Lexington can now be seen on DirecTV channel 14, Dish Network channel 28, and Charter Spectrum channel 5 in Lexington and channel 99 in the surrounding suburbs. Baltimore CW station WNUV was the formerly designated WB/CW station for DirecTV in the Lexington market. The CW Lexington also airs Xploration Station on Sunday mornings.

General programming

As a CBS affiliate, WKYT clears the network's entire program schedule, in addition to the station's syndicated programming and local newscasts. Although most CBS-affiliated stations in the Eastern Time Zone air The Young and the Restless at 12:30 p.m., WKYT instead airs the soap opera at 1 p.m. due to its hour-long midday newscast at noon. As such, The Bold and the Beautiful airs on a one-day delay at 10:30 a.m. (two hours earlier than the network's recommended Eastern Time Zone slot), following the station's 10 a.m. newscast. WKYT's lineup of syndicated programs include Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, Live with Kelly, and TMZ.

Sports programming

WKYT regularly broadcasts University of Kentucky Wildcats content, due partly to its status as the television flagship of the UK Sports Network (historically the Big Blue Sports Network), and also due to the Southeastern Conference's broadcast contracts with CBS Sports. In addition to CBS Sports content, both WKYT and WYMT also broadcast the syndicated package of SEC football and basketball games from Raycom Sports (formerly Jefferson-Pilot and Lincoln Financial Sports) from the 1980s until 2009, when Raycom lost the SEC syndication rights. In 2009, the station began carrying the ESPN Plus-operated syndication service SEC TV (formerly SEC Network), which ceased operations in 2014 because of the launch of the new SEC Network, which is the cable and satellite TV-only channel operated by ESPN.

Since 2014, WKYT and WKYT-DT2 are currently the local alternating homes of Raycom Sports-operated ACC Network, the syndicated package of Atlantic Coast Conference football and basketball, and will be until the launch of the ACC-ESPN Network in August 2019.

It gained a major ratings windfall in the 1981-82 season, when CBS won the rights to the NCAA Basketball Tournament after more than a decade on NBC. With the Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team as a longtime fixture in the tournament, NCAA Tournament games on WKYT are frequently among the most-watched programs in the market during the tournament's run. Due to the 2011 partnership between the NCAA, CBS, and the Turner Broadcasting-owned cable networks TBS, TNT, and TruTV, the station's local ratings on the tournament are affected.

Locally produced programs

News operation

WKYT also holds Kentucky's most powerful doppler weather radar, known as the "27 First Alert Defender", which outruns NBC affiliate WLEX-TV's radar. WKYT has a news share agreement with the local Fox affiliate WDKY-TV (which is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group) and produces weekday morning 7:00 a.m. and nightly 10:00 p.m. newscasts for that station. The prime-time newscast debuted in 1995 when Fox requested its affiliates to air local news. The morning newscast was added in March 2007.

On April 11, 2007, WKYT began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition, beginning with the 11:00 p.m. newscast, becoming the first station in Kentucky to carry local newscasts in HD. The WDKY newscasts were included in the upgrade. In late 2012 WKYT dropped the 27 Newsfirst name they have used for decades, rebranded themselves as WKYT News. At the same time, they implemented a new graphics scheme and changed their theme music and bumpers to Gari Media Group's CBS Enforcer News Music package.

On November 10, 2012, WKYT launched a new weekend morning newscast from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. on Saturdays and from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. on Sundays. In early February 2013, WKYT launched an hour-long 4:00 p.m. newscast, previously they had a 35-minute online-only newscast which was named "27Newsfirst Live Online" which aired at 4:00pm and then they decided to air it on TV at 4:00, but the only one for an hour-long (as WLEX airs it's 4:00 p.m. newscasts for 30 minutes).

Ratings

WKYT leads in total-day and late-night news ratings except during times when the Olympics air on NBC. That network's local affiliate WLEX-TV leads weekday mornings. The two stations battle each other for the evening news lead in this historically UHF-exclusive market. Most of the local stations' viewership has been via cable; even in digital, it is difficult for the over-the-air analog UHF signals to penetrate the far eastern portion of the market, which is largely rugged, mountainous terrain. WKYT relies mainly on WYMT to cover this part of the market.

Currently, WKYT has the highest-rated 11:00 p.m. newscast in the market, but runs second in late night news to the 10:00 p.m. newscast it produces for WDKY.

Notable former on-air staff

Out of market coverage

WKYT's over-the-air signal can be picked up in some of the Louisville market's easternmost counties like Nelson, Washington, Marion, Henry and Shelby counties, thereby creating some competition between WKYT and Louisville's CBS affiliate WLKY-TV because of that station's close proximity to the Lexington area. WKYT is also available over-the-air in the southernmost counties/areas of the Cincinnati market.

Duo County Telecom, based in Jamestown, carries WKYT's main subchannel on their cable system serving Adair, Cumberland and Russell counties. Russell County is considered to be within WKYT's local market, but Adair County is considered to be in the Louisville market, and Cumberland County is within the Nashville, Tennessee DMA. WKYT is also carried on Charter Spectrum and Armstrong Cable systems in the Ashland area, which is in the Charleston/Huntington, West Virginia media market. In addition, WKYT, along with WLEX, is available in the Jellico, Tennessee area, which is in the Knoxville media market.

At one time from the 1990s until 2010, WKYT was also available on the cable system of Glasgow, Kentucky-based South Central Rural Telephone Cooperative, which serves the eastern half of the Bowling Green media market, where CBS programming would be served by either WNKY-DT2 or Nashville, Tennessee CBS affiliate WTVF.