WDKA

37°23′42″N 88°56′23″W / 37.39500°N 88.93972°W / 37.39500; -88.93972Translator(s)KBSI-DT 23.2 (22.2 UHF) Cape Girardeau, MOLinksWebsitekbsi23.com

WDKA (channel 49) is a television station licensed to Paducah, Kentucky, United States, serving as the MyNetworkTV affiliate for Western Kentucky's Purchase region, Southern Illinois and Southeastern Missouri, and Northwest Tennessee. It is owned by the Community News Media subsidiary of Standard Media alongside Cape Girardeau, Missouri–licensed Fox affiliate KBSI (channel 23). Both stations share studios on Enterprise Street in Cape Girardeau, while WDKA's transmitter is located in Vienna, Illinois.

In addition to its own digital signal, WDKA is simulcast in standard definition on KBSI's second digital subchannel (23.2) from a transmitter north of Cape Girardeau in unincorporated Cape Girardeau County.

History

WDKA began broadcasting on June 5, 1997. It was a UPN affiliate broadcasting an analog signal on UHF channel 49.^[3] In 2000, WDKA switched affiliations with low-powered station WQTV-LP (licensed to Murray, Kentucky) and repeater WQWQ-LP to become an affiliate of The WB. In September 2006, The WB and UPN merged to become The CW, and WQTV-LP was announced to become The CW affiliate for Paducah in advance of the merger. As a result, WDKA became affiliated with MyNetworkTV when it launched on September 5.

On August 30, 2014, WDKA became a charter affiliate of Sinclair's ad-hoc syndicated television network, the American Sports Network. ASN provided Ohio Valley Conference basketball and Conference USA football and basketball games to the station's viewers.^[4][5] The ASN's programming content replaced Southeastern Conference football and basketball broadcasts from ESPN Plus-oriented SEC TV, which was run from 2009 until 2014, which was discontinued because of the launch of the pay TV-exclusive SEC Network.

On March 3, 2016, WDKA Acquisition Corporation (owned by Paul T. Lucci^[6]) filed to sell WDKA to Sinclair's subsidiary WDKA Licensee, LLC.^[7] Sinclair bought the station for $1.9 million.^[8] The sale was completed on September 1, 2017.^[9]

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WDKA^[10]

Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
49.1	720p	16:9	WDKA-DT	Main WDKA programming / MyNetworkTV
49.2	480i		Charge!	Charge!
49.3			TBD	TBD
49.4			TheNest	The Nest
49.5			DABL	Dabl
49.6			CourtTV	Court TV

Analog-to-digital conversion

WDKA shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 49, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 50,^[11] using virtual channel 49.

Spectrum reallocation

In October 2019, WDKA reallocated its digital signal onto UHF channel 25 as a result of the station's participation in the FCC's spectrum incentive auction.

References