WKUT-LD

WKUT-LD is a low-powered television station licensed to and expected to serve Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA. The station is owned by DTV America Corporation of Sunrise, Florida, making WKUT a sister station to Antenna TV and MyNetworkTV outlet WCZU-LD. This station is currently dark and silent, and it is therefore unknown when and if the station will sign back on the air. When and if WKUT signs on the air, it will broadcast on UHF channel 32, but through the use of PSIP, it will be displayed on tuners as virtual channel 25. The elected site of WKUT-LD's new transmitter is located just off Blue Level Road on the western outskirts of Bowling Green just west of the Natcher Parkway, thereby sharing tower space with FM radio translator station W248CF. The station's license is currently pending.^[1]

History

As a TBN O&O translator

The station was originally licensed to Glasgow, Kentucky, located in Barren County, Kentucky, with the callsign WKUT-LP, broadcasting on analog UHF channel 64.^[2] The station's construction permit was granted by the FCC on January 2, 2007. The signal mainly reached most of Barren County, southern Hart County (including Horse Cave), and pathetically small areas of eastern Warren and southeast Edmonson Counties (e.g. Hays, Rocky Hill, Pondsville), and never reached Bowling Green, the principal city of the local media market. The current WKUT-LD calls came on February 15, 2007 in an attempt to convert the station to digital. In 2010, the station went silent after being purchased by Budd Broadcasting, and the broadcast license was relocated to Bowling Green. Before WKUT went silent, it was a very low-powered owned-and-operated translator of TBN, the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Currently, the nearest full-powered TBN station, however, is Hendersonville, Tennessee-licensed WPGD-TV. TBN also operated WKUW-LP on analog channel 60, which was also licensed to Glasgow, and at one time was licensed to Smiths Grove, until 2010 when they sold it to Budd Broadcasting, who relocated that station to White House, Tennessee, located within the Nashville media market, which is the home market for WPGD. WKUG-LP, which operated on analog channel 62, was also licensed to Glasgow and was also a TBN O&O translator from 2002 until 2007. Currently, WPGD serves as the default over-the-air TBN station for the Bowling Green media market, even though TBN, along with its associated sister multi-cast networks (e.g. The Church Channel, JUCE TV, Smile of a Child TV), is widely available on virtually all cable television systems. The area can also receive TBN via both major satellite TV providers (e.g. Dish Network and DirecTV). Some parts of the Bowling Green market could receive WPGD's signal with an antenna, mainly in Warren, Barren, and southern Butler Counties, along with a small sliver of Edmonson County. Other than WPGD's southern Kentucky coverage, Scottsville-licensed WPBM-CD, which technically is in the Nashville market, is currently Bowling Green's only local religious station as they provide syndicated and locally produced religious programming.

Under DTV America ownership

In 2015, DTV America Corporation became the operator of both WKUT and WKUW-LD, with the license remaining with Budd Broadcasting.^[3] With DTV America elected as WKUT's operator, this would make WKUT the in-market sister station to Antenna TV and MyNetworkTV outlet WCZU-LD. On July 17, 2015, DTV America took full control of both WKUT and WKUW and now owns and operates the station outright.^[4]

On Friday, September 11, 2015, sister station WKUW-LD, which now serves the Nashville area, began running a test pattern, indicating that a new network affiliation will be coming soon to that station. It became an affiliate of the Doctor Television Channel (DrTV) on November 23, 2015, but switched to Buzzr on December 8 of that year.^[5] WCZU-LD already launched as a dual affiliate of MyNetworkTV and Antenna TV in 2014, with DrTV on that station's second subchannel (which has since switched to FremantleMedia-owned game show channel Buzzr in December 2015). If and when WKUT launches, DTV America could use the station as a translator/repeater of WCZU, or affiliate WKUT with either Soul of the South Network, Sonlife Broadcasting Network, GetTV, Grit, or one of the Spanish language networks (e.g. Telemundo, MundoMax, Azteca America or Estrella TV).^[6] The Doctor Television Channel (DrTV) may also be an option for WKUT as WCZU-LD dropped that network from that station's second subchannel in favor of Buzzr in December 2015. Sonlife made it to WCZU's DT4 subchannel in August 2016, and both Grit and Escape launched on that station's DT5 and DT6 subchannels one month later.

If one of the aforementioned Spanish networks (i.e. Telemundo, MundoMax, Azteca) comes to WKUT, then the station would become the Bowling Green area's first-ever Spanish-language station, and would probably be the first one of that kind to ever be based in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In addition, DTV America is also yet to sign on WCTZ-LD, which may launch at some point within the next four years.

References

External links

• Query the FCC's TV station database for WKUT
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WKUT-TV
• DTV America
• WKUT-LD Query on RECNet Database