Changes: WLKY-TV

WLKY-TV
Louisville, Kentucky
Branding	WLKY (general) WLKY News (newscasts)
Slogan	Live. Local. Latebreaking.
Channels	Digital: 26 (UHF)
Subchannels	32.1 CBS32.2 to be MeTV
Owner	Hearst Television, Inc. (WLKY Hearst Television, Inc.)
First air date	September 16, 1961
Call letters' meaning	'W'Louisville, KentuckY
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 32 (1961-2009)
Former affiliations	ABC (1961-1990)
Transmitter power	600 kW (digital)
Height	392 m (digital)
Facility ID	53939
Transmitter coordinates	38°22′10.1244″N85°50′1.5828″W (digital)
Website	www.wlky.com/

Revision as of 02:40, 4 January 2013

WLKY-TV is a television station located in Louisville, Kentucky USA, and serves the Louisville area and southeastern Indiana. The station is owned by the Hearst Corporation, and is an affiliate of the CBS television network. WLKY's transmitter is located north of Louisville in Floyds Knobs, Indiana. Syndicated programming on the station includes: Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!,The Real Housewives, and The Nate Berkus Show.

History

WLKY-TV former logo from 1998 until 2008

The station signed on September 16, 1961 as a full-time ABC affiliate. Previously, the ABC affiliation in Louisville was shared between NBC affiliate WAVE-TV and then-CBS affiliateWHAS-TV. Although Louisville had been big enough since the early 1950s to support three full affiliates, it had a fairly long wait for full network service. The Louisville market is a fairly large market geographically, and also includes some rugged terrain. The nearest VHF allocations, channels 7 and 13, had been allocated to Evansville and Bowling Green, respectively. These factors made perspective owners skittish about setting up shop on one of the available UHF allocations in the area.

WLKY was founded by a local group, Kentuckiana Television, who in 1967 sold it to Sonderling Broadcasting (which would acquire several medium-market radio and television stations such as WAST in Albany, New York (now WNYT) until that company merged with Viacom in 1979). In 1973, Sonderling sold the station to Combined Communications. In 1979, Combined Communications merged with the Gannett Company.

In the spring of 1983, Gannett sold WLKY and WPTA in Fort Wayne, Indiana (the two smallest stations in Gannett's television station portfolio at the time) to Pulitzer Publishing after it purchased WLVI-TV in Boston (currently owned by Sunbeam Television) from Field Communications and WTCN-TV (now KARE) in Minneapolis from Metromedia. This was because the WLVI and WTCN purchases left Gannett with two television stations over the Federal Communications Commission's seven-station limit in effect at the time. Pulitzer kept WLKY but sold WPTA to Granite Broadcasting in 1989.

In September 1990, just over seven years after Pulitzer completed its purchase of the station, WLKY swapped network affiliations with WHAS (by then owned by the Providence Journal Company, now owned by Belo), with WLKY taking the CBS affiliation and WHAS becoming the ABC affiliate—much to that station's chagrin.^[1] This came after then-second-place ABC became dissatisfied with the viewership ratings at some of its affiliates (while CBS was in distant third at this midpoint of the Laurence Tisch era of the network's history), and ABC wanted a stronger affiliation. WLKY had long been one of ABC's weaker affiliates, while WHAS had been the dominant station in Louisville for almost 20 years at the time.

However due to the varying terrain of the Kentuckiana area, cable television is almost a requirement for effective viewing, and with the combination of a low universal cable channel number (Channel 5 on both Comcast and Insight), Hearst's aggressive station marketing efforts, and the digital transition leaving only WHAS and WBNA on the VHF band after the June 12, 2009 deadline, WLKY's former weakness of being a UHF station has been almost completely nullified.

Pulitzer sold its entire broadcasting division, including WLKY, to what was then Hearst-Argyle Television in 1999. From 1977 to 1986, WLKY was known as "32 Alive." At the time, Combined Communications used the "Alive" moniker on four of its stations-- WLKY, KOCO-TV inOklahoma City, WXIA-TV in Atlanta and WPTA in Fort Wayne. Gannett-owned WXIA still uses the "Alive" moniker, as does WPTA, although that station is no longer owned by Gannett.

WLKY does not currently transmit any subchannels. However, it will add a new subchannel carrying programming from MeTV some time in the near future although no date has yet been set.

Analog-to-digital conversion

WLKY-TV shut down analog transmissions on June 12, 2009. ^[2] The station remained on its pre-transition channel 26. ^[3] Through the use ofPSIP, digital television receivers display WLKY-TV's virtual channel as 32.

Programming

WLKY is one of the few CBS affiliates to show The Young and the Restless 4-5 p.m., leading into the 5 p.m. local news. In 1993, after losingOprah to WHAS, WLKY tried The Bertice Berry Show (which was cancelled nationally after one season) in the timeslot, which was a disaster and eventually moved The Young and the Restless to 4pm where it remains today. Other CBS affiliates WAFB in Baton Rouge, WRAL inRaleigh and KMOV in St. Louis also run The Young and the Restless in the 4pm timeslot. The game show duo of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune have also aired on channel 32 in national syndication for many years.

News operation

In 2008, WLKY changed its branding from WLKY NewsChannel 32 to WLKY News. NewsChopper 32 was renamed "WLKY NewsChopper". A new graphics package debuted as well.

In February 2010, WLKY became the third station in the Louisville market to begin airing its newscasts in widescreen—and the second to air them in upconverted widescreen standard definition rather than true high definition.

Ratings

Ironically, WLKY has been far more successful as a CBS affiliate than it ever had been as an ABC affiliate. Even with the affiliate "downgrade" from VHF to UHF, CBS' network ratings in the Louisville market during the early to mid 1990s remained strong at a time when its ratings in many other markets stagnated or declined. WLKY has led its competitors in the 11 pm newscast time slot for the past several years, and its morning news show remains competitive (albeit in second place behind WHAS' morning news show during the past year).

Today, Louisville is a highly competitive market where only a few ratings share points separate first place from third place, and is also one of the few markets in the country where all three affiliates of the Big Three television networks are relatively strong -- a remarkable achievement, especially in a market where one of the top three stations (WLKY) was over the air on UHF and the other two (WHAS and WAVE) were on VHF during the analog age.

News/station presentation

Newscast titles

WLKY-TV News (1961-1963)
Metro Report (1963-1967)
Complete Information News (1967-1969)
32 Eyewitness News (1969-1977)
32 Alive Newsroom (1977-1984)
32 Alive News (1984-1986)
Channel 32 News (1986-1998)
NewsChannel 32 (1998-2008)
WLKY News (2008-present)

Station slogans

Keep Your Eye on 32 Eyewitness News (early 1970s)
It's All Right Here on 32 Alive (late 1970s)
32 Alive`s The One You Can Turn To (1978-1979; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
Looking Better All the Time (early 1980s–1986)
We`re With You on 32 Alive (1984-1985; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
You`ll Love It on 32 Alive (1985-1986; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
Together on Channel 32 (1986-1987; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
Something's Happening on Channel 32 (1987-1990; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
Turn to the Channel 32 News (late 1980s)
If It Matters to You, It Matters to Us (late 1980s)
Get Ready for 32 (1990-1991; localized version of CBS ad campaign)
The Look of Louisville is 32 (1991-1992; localized version of CBS ad campaign)
This is CBS, on 32 (1992-1993; localized version of CBS ad campaign)
Louisville's 24-Hour News Source / 32 for You (early 1990s-1995)
Where the News Comes First (1995-2005)
Live. Local. Latebreaking. (1998-present; also used by sister station KOCO in Oklahoma City since the same period)

On-air staff

Current on-air staff

Anchors

Steve Burgin - weekends at 6, 6:30 and 11 p.m.; also investigative reporter
Natasha Collins - weekday mornings WLKY News This Morning
Vicki Dortch - weeknights at 5, 5:30, 6 and 11 p.m.
Monica Hardin - weekday mornings WLKY News This Morning
Rick Van Hoose - weeknights at 5, 5:30 and 11 p.m.
Karen Roby-weekend mornings WLKY News This Morning

WLKY Weather

Jay Cardosi (AMS Seal of Approval) - meteorologist; weeknights at 5, 5:30, 6 and 11 p.m.
Jared Heil (AMS member) - meteorologist; Saturdays at 6 and 11 p.m.
Susanne Horgan (AMS Seal of Approval) - meteorologist; weekend mornings, and Sundays at 6:30 and 11 p.m.
Matt Milosevich - (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Seal of Approval) - meteorologist; weekday mornings and noon

Sports team

Fred Cowgill - sports director; weeknights at 6 and 11 p.m.
Keith Farmer - sports anchor; weekends at 6, 6:30 and 11 p.m.

Reporters

Andy Alcock - City Hall reporter
Ann Bowdan - general assignment reporter
Kristen Drew - general assignment reporter
Liz Everman - "Wednesday's Child" feature reporter
Erin Haynes - general assignment reporter
Eric King - general assignment reporter
Karen Roby - general assignment reporter
Maxine Rouben - "Real Deal" consumer reporter
Lexy Scheen - traffic reporter
Steve Tellier - general assignment reporter
Daniel Kemp - general assignment reporter

Hearst Television Washington Bureau

Sally Kidd - Washington bureau reporter
Nikole Killion - Washington bureau reporter
Laurie Kinney - Washington bureau reporter

Notable former staff

Mark Giangreco - sports anchor (later at WLS-TV Chicago)
Dan Lewis - anchor (Currently evening anchor for KOMO-TV in Seattle)
Tom Mintier - reporter (moved to CNN)
Diane Sawyer - got her start at the station (1967-1970; now anchor of ABC's World News)

References

^ Pulitzer Publishing Company's television station in Louisville, WLKY-TV, to join the CBS Television Network as a new affiliate in September,PR Newswire. August 14, 1990. HighBeam Research, (February 17, 2011).
^ [1]^{[dead link]}
^ CDBS Print

External links

[1

[2

[3

@@ Line 95: / Line 95: @@
 *''It's All Right Here on 32 Alive'' (late 1970s)
 *''32 Alive`s The One You Can Turn To'' (1978-1979; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
-*''Looking Better All the Time'' (early 1980s)
+*''Looking Better All the Time'' (early 1980s–1986)
 *''We`re With You on 32 Alive'' (1984-1985; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
 *''You`ll Love It on 32 Alive'' (1985-1986; localized version of ABC ad campaign)