Independent TV station in Louisville, Kentucky
Not to be confused with
WNAB
.
WBNA
(channel 21) is an
independent television station
in
Louisville, Kentucky
, United States, owned by local
charismatic
megachurch
Evangel World Prayer Center. The station's offices are located on Fern Valley Road (just north of
State Route 1747
) in
Okolona
, and its transmitter is located off Oakcrest Drive in
Shepherdsville
. As such, WBNA is the only full-power television station in the Louisville market whose transmitter facilities are not based at the
Kentuckiana
tower farm in
Floyds Knobs, Indiana
.
History
[
edit
]
The station's
construction permit
was granted by the
Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) in 1978. Bob Rodgers, the station's president and the management of the station, associated with a 6,000-member Evangel Tabernacle congregation, intended for the station to go on the air on
Christmas Day
1985, but technical problems with the transmission antenna prevented that from happening. After seven years of construction and technical errors, WBNA finally signed on the air on April 2, 1986, as the second full-power independent station in the Louisville market.
[2]
WBNA's sign-on marked the first signal on
analog
Channel 21 in Louisville since the demise of
WKLO-TV
, which operated as a dual
ABC
/
DuMont
affiliate from October 1953 through April 1954.
WBNA originally offered mostly local and national
religious programming
.
[2]
: 282
Broadcasting this programming format did not come without risks as Christian-oriented television became a depressed market due to recent scandals involving televangelists. Thus, by 1988, the station developed a schedule that is more typical of a general entertainment independent station, which included family-oriented programs,
movies
, and some programming from shopping networks. However, televised local church services remained on the schedule.
[2]
: 283
When
WDRB
(channel 41) joined
Fox
eleven months later in May 1987, WBNA became the only independent in Louisville until WFTE (channel 58, now
WBKI
) signed on in March 1994; when that station joined
UPN
in 1995, WBNA once again became Louisville's sole independent station.
The station became a charter affiliate of
The WB
when the network launched on January 11, 1995. However, Evangel felt chagrin at The WB's decision to pick up several programs that it believed offended the sensibilities of channel 21's mostly
fundamentalist
and
Pentecostal
viewership, such as nighttime
soap
Savannah
, supernatural
dramas
Charmed
and
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
and
sitcom
Unhappily Ever After
. WBNA opted to preempt these programs and fill these timeslots with syndicated or religious programming. These shows were seen in the Louisville market via
WGN-TV
's
national feed
during this time period. The WB soon regretted aligning with a conservative religious station, and began making plans to move its programming elsewhere. In 1998,
Campbellsville
-based WGRB (channel 34, later the original
WBKI-TV
), which had been serving as the WB affiliate for the southern portion of the Louisville market for just over a year, became the market's primary WB affiliate. At the same time, it announced plans to build a new transmitter tower (which was activated in 2000) that would not only improve its coverage within Louisville itself and some adjacent areas, but give it at least grade B signal coverage in most of Kentucky. WBNA became an affiliate of the family-oriented network Pax TV?later i: Independent Television and now
Ion Television
?in September 1999.
WBNA was one of the few stations that carried programming from Ion Television as an affiliate of the network, instead of being an
owned-and-operated station
. It was the largest Ion Television station by market size that is not owned by network parent
Ion Media Networks
. In addition, the station is licensed to Louisville proper rather than an outer-ring suburb, as is the usual case with Ion stations. Due to Evangel's commitment to the network, WBNA was free to carry additional networks on its digital signal's bandwidth (as described below) rather than being beholden to carrying all of the five networks (Ion,
Qubo
,
Ion Life
,
infomercial
service Ion Shop,
QVC
and the
Home Shopping Network
) that were carried on Ion-owned stations.
WBNA did not carry the full Ion schedule, and had not cleared additional broadcast hours that have been added by the network since 2008 (the network currently airs general entertainment programming daily from 7 a.m. to 3 a.m. in the
Eastern Time Zone
; however, religious and secular programs preempted much of the network's daytime schedule on WBNA). During the early evening hours, the station also aired a rebroadcast of
Lexington
NBC affiliate
WLEX-TV
's 6 p.m. newscast and other local programs (also in lieu of Ion's entertainment programming in the 7 p.m. hour). The station also split the network's Qubo block (which counts towards FCC
E/I
requirements) over two days; one half-hour of the block aired on Friday mornings in its recommended timeslot, while two additional 90-minute blocks aired respectively on Saturday mornings and afternoons on a
tape delay
.
From 2013 to 2017, WBNA's main channel was relayed on translator station WBNM-LD.
In February 2017, WBNA dropped its affiliation with Ion to once again become an independent station. Ion programming began airing on a digital subchannel of
Block Communications
-owned Fox affiliate WDRB on March 1.
Sports programming
[
edit
]
WBNA broadcasts
college basketball
games involving the
Western Kentucky
Hilltoppers
and
Lady Toppers
, originating from the
Bowling Green
?based
Hilltopper Sports Network
's television division. WBNA is also the flagship station for the weekly television program of local
professional wrestling
promotion
Ohio Valley Wrestling
(OVW).
[3]
[4]
On March 9, 2017, it was announced that WBNA would become the primary broadcaster of
Louisville City FC
's matches in the
2017 USL season
.
[5]
Technical information
[
edit
]
Subchannels
[
edit
]
The station's signal is
multiplexed
:
Daystar programming was previously carried on WBNA during overnight and some daytime timeslots, in place of Ion's paid programming and programs such as the weekend
Knife Show
home shopping block. Some of Ion's late night programming (past 11 p.m.) was carried on the
Retro Television Network
subchannel, while the main WBNA channel carried overnight religious programming.
Qubo
was available on the fifth subchannel of WBNA. This made it one of the few stations not owned by Ion Media to carry the network.
In late July 2009, WBNA replaced the Ion-provided feed of
The Worship Network
on digital subchannel 21.4 with the Retro Television Network.
[7]
In October 2009, WBNA launched "The Light" on a sixth digital subchannel; the locally programmed service aired a mix of local church services and other worship programming, originally intermixed within the Daystar schedule, especially during time periods in which Daystar programming aired over the station's main channel.
Several changes occurred in late April 2011 in order to accommodate technical upgrades to transmit the station's main channel in 720p high definition: WBNA dropped Daystar and Ion Life, as well as their respective subchannel slots on 21.5 and 21.6; it also began carrying GOD TV programming over "The Light" and integrating the service onto digital channel 21.3. GOD TV and "The Light" programming now airs on WBNA's main channel during timeslots where Daystar programming previously aired, while in some early afternoon periods, the main channel carried RTV programming, which was eventually replaced with the rebroadcast of WAVE's midday newscast and
Debmar-Mercury
?distributed syndicated programs.
Analog-to-digital conversion
[
edit
]
WBNA discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over
UHF
channel 21, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States
transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts
under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 8, using
virtual channel
21. Channel 8, however, has been problematic for many digital TV stations. WBNA's lower power signal and shorter antenna tower in
Bullitt County, Kentucky
(shorter due to its relative position to the approaches to the two NNE-SSW runways at
Louisville International Airport
), delivers a much weaker city signal than the other full-power DTVs (and many
low-power
and
Class A
stations), which transmit from the 900-foot (274 m) bluffs of
Floyds Knobs, Indiana
.
[8]
[9]
WBNA is only one of two Louisville television stations that broadcasts its post-transition digital signal on the VHF band, along with
WHAS-TV
(channel 11).
As part of the
SAFER Act
,
[10]
WBNA kept its analog signal on the air until June 26 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of
public service announcements
from the
National Association of Broadcasters
.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Facility Technical Data for WBNA"
.
Licensing and Management System
.
Federal Communications Commission
.
- ^
a
b
c
Nash, Francis M. (1995).
Towers Over Kentucky: A History of Radio and TV in the Bluegrass State
.
ISBN
9781879688933
.
- ^
OV Wrestling
- ^
Watch OVW
- ^
"Louisville City FC signs TV deal with WBNA, WDRB, WYMO
(sic)
to air all of its games this season - Louisville - Louisville Business First"
. Archived from
the original
on March 11, 2017.
- ^
Digital TV Market Listing for WBNA
- ^
"Jake's DTV Blog: UPDATED - The Derby City Chronicle: RTV coming to WBNA"
. Jakesdtvblog.blogspot.com. July 28, 2009
. Retrieved
December 10,
2011
.
- ^
"DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds"
(PDF)
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on August 29, 2013
. Retrieved
March 24,
2012
.
- ^
"CDBS Account Login"
.
- ^
"UPDATED List of Participants in the Analog Nightlight Program"
(PDF)
. Federal Communications Commission. June 12, 2009
. Retrieved
June 4,
2012
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
|
Full power
|
- WAVE
(3.1
NBC
, 3.2
Bounce
, 3.3
The365
, 3.4
Grit
)
- WHAS-TV
(11.1
ABC
, 11.2
Crime
, 11.3
Quest
, 11.4
Court
, 11.5
Nest
, 11.6
Get
, 11.7
HSN
, 11.8
QVC
, 11.9
Dabl
)
- WKPC-TV
(15.1
PBS
/
KET
, 15.2
KET2
, 15.3
KET KY
, 15.4
PBS Kids
)
- WBNA
(21.1
Ind.
, 21.2
Start
, 21.3
This
, 21.4
Buzzr
, 21.5
Catchy
, 21.6
H&I
, 21.7
Mystery
, 21.8
Local Now
, 21.9
QVC
, 21.10
HSN
, 21.11
Awakening
)
- WLKY
(32.1
CBS
, 32.2
MeTV
, 32.3
Shop LC
, 32.4
Story
, 32.5
Grio
, 32.6
QVC2
)
- WDRB
(41.1
Fox
, 41.2
ANT
, 41.3
Ion
, 41.4
Scripps News
)
- WBKI
(58.1
CW
, 58.2
Cozi
, 58.3
MNTV
, 58.4
Movies!
, 58.5
Mystery
, 58.6
Defy
)
- WKMJ-TV
(68.1
PBS
/
KET2
, 68.2
KET
, 68.3
KET KY
, 68.4
PBS Kids
, 68.5
World
)
|
---|
Low power
|
- WJYL-CD
(16.1
TBN
, 16.2
Hillsong
, 16.3
Positiv
, 16.4
Smile
, 16.5
Enlace
)
- WMYO-CD
(24.1
Laff
, 24.2
This
, 24.3
Mystery
, 24.4
TBD
, 24.5
Comet
, 24.6
Charge!
, 24.7
Jewelry TV
)
- WDYL-LD
(28.1 Daystar
HD
, 28.2 Daystar
SD
)
- WBNM-LD
(50.1
Buzzr
, 50.2
GEB
, 50.3
Sonlife
, 50.4
Dabl
, 50.5
Catchy
, 50.6 Right Now TV, 50.7
NewsNet
)
|
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ATSC 3.0
| |
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Cable
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Streaming
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Outlying areas
| Southern Indiana
| |
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Central Kentucky
| |
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|
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Defunct
| |
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|
Other television stations licensed to and serving the state of
Indiana
|
---|
Independent
stations
| |
---|
Spanish-language
stations
|
- WDNI-CD 19
(
TMD
,
Indianapolis
)
- WBQC-LD 25
(
TMD
,
Cincinnati, OH
)
- WSNS-TV 44
(
TMD
,
Chicago, IL
)
- WXFT-DT 60
(
UniMas
,
Aurora, IL
)
- WGBO-DT 66
(
UNI
,
Joliet, IL
)
- WMYS-LD 69.2
(
TMD
,
South Bend
)
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YTA TV
affiliates
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Other
Chicago
market
stations
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Other
Indianapolis
market
stations
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Other
South Bend
market
stations
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Other
Fort Wayne
market
stations
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Defunct stations
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