WBLU-LP

WBLU-LP was a low-power television station broadcasting on channel 62 in Lexington, Kentucky. The station was owned by Equity Media Holdings of Little Rock, Arkansas. WBLU's signal was broadcast from downtown Lexington and provided coverage that did not extend far past the developed portions of the city, although the signal could be picked up in neighboring Scott and Bourbon counties.

There was a construction permit to boost the current power of 4 kW to 42 kW on channel 62, which would have increased the viewing area into the neighboring cities that touch Lexington. The signal upgrade never took place as, while the station as a low-power broadcaster would not have been required to broadcast in the new digital format at that time, channel 62 was reassigned for non-television use after the digital television transition for full service stations was completed in 2009.

History

Channel 62

The channel 62 frequency was originally used by a full-powered station, WBLG-TV (later WTVQ-TV), until 1980, when that station relocated to channel 36.

After WTVQ moved to channel 36, several organizations were petitioning for a license to broadcast on the channel 62 frequency, in the hopes of making it the fourth television station broadcasting out of Lexington (aside from KET). Way of the Cross, Inc., which wanted to use it for Christian broadcasting, was initially awarded the license, but, in 1983, channel 62 was awarded to Family Broadcasting Co., Inc., a for-profit group, due to their ability to build a stronger transmitter, which would carry the signal further into Eastern Kentucky. In 1986, a settlement between Way of the Cross and FBC was reached, which would allow Way of the Cross to broadcast 15 hours of religious programming each week, plus part-ownership of the station, while FBC would construct the station. Meanwhile, WDKY-TV channel 56, based in Danville with studios in Lexington, went on the air, making it the fourth station in the market.

Finally, after more than seven years of legal battles, the station, WLKT, went on the air on October 15, 1988 under FBC's ownership, giving Lexington two independent stations. The studio and offices were located in a small shopping center at 124 New Circle Road, Northeast. The transmitter was located on Clintonville Road, three miles north of U.S. 60, in Clark County. WLKT ceased operations at 4:30 pm on June 30, 1989.^[2]

WBLU-LP

UPN and WB affiliations

Channel 62 returned to the air on May 3, 1999, when B&C Communications first signed on WBLU. The station was a UPN affiliate, airing infomercials and syndicated reruns outside of the network's hours.

In September 1999, WBLU added The WB as a secondary affiliation. The station aired WB programs off-schedule, weeknights at 10:00 pm and on weekends. Though the actual airtime of programs promoted by the network could have easily been inserted via a voiceover (as some dual-network affiliates carrying the WB out of pattern such as WZPX-TV did), the station instead crudely removed the promos wholesale while running the network's programming. The WB affiliation ended in September 2003, after WBKI (via cable) became the WB affiliate for the Lexington market upon moving their transmitter to be slightly more equidistant between Louisville and Lexington.

Period of independence and beginning of struggles

In September 2004, WBLU lost its UPN affiliation when WKYT-TV established its second digital subchannel, "UKYT" (now "CWKYT"). WBLU then became an independent station which struggled to maintain programming for the next two years. Timeslots outside of syndication were filled with paid programming and public domain films, some of which were acquired only minutes before airtime from the "dollar DVD" section of a nearby Walmart.^[3]

MyNetworkTV affiliation

WBLU was purchased by Equity Broadcasting in August 2006, which began to centralcast the station from their Little Rock, Arkansas headquarters, ending any local staffing of the station at the end of 2006. On September 5, 2006, the station became a charter affiliate of MyNetworkTV without any consideration of becoming part of The CW, as Equity refused to affiliate any of their stations with that network. Equity also added programming from the Retro Television Network (which it owned at that time) to fill out the remainder of the broadcast day, discontinuing any other syndicated programming.

WBLU-LP went dark on or about July 22, 2008 due to what Equity described as "intermittent signal delivery issues" via satellite from Little Rock.^[4] The station reportedly resumed broadcasting on October 1, 2008.

Decline and end of operations

The station lost its MyNetworkTV affiliation on October 31, 2008 due to both dissatisfaction by the network, and viewer complaints about the loss of WWE Friday Night Smackdown from WKYT-DT2 after its move to MyNetworkTV; unlike that CW affiliate, WBLU-LP was never carried on any local pay television services.^[5] Communication between local media, MyNetworkTV and Equity was non-existent to the point that fans placed paid advertising in the Lexington Herald-Leader expressing their frustration,^[6] forcing the hand of MyNetworkTV to affiliate on a station viewable on cable in a critical WWE market. The affiliation then moved immediately to the second subchannel of WTVQ-TV.^{[7][8] [9]}

The secondary RTN affiliation then became primary for WBLU-LP, but was unexpectedly terminated on January 4, 2009 after a contract conflict between Equity and Luken Communications (who had acquired RTN in June 2008) came abruptly to a head with Equity terminating the RTV signal from their base in Little Rock, Arkansas; this resulted in Luken dropping all Equity-owned affiliates, including WBLU. Though Luken promised to find a new affiliate for the network immediately,^[10] it has never returned to the Lexington market.

For three months, the station carried a loop of Equity's last-resort network Retro Jams, which carried music videos, but without any network to affiliate with or local advertising revenue coming in, the future of the station as a going concern quickly declined. WBLU-LP ended up going dark permanently on March 4, 2009, five months after the loss of MyNetworkTV.

WBLU was sold at auction to the Daystar Television Network on April 16, 2009 with several other Equity stations.^[11][12][13] However, Daystar was already carried on most cable systems in the Lexington market, and the network's need to have an affiliate without much signal range negated the need for an over-the-air affiliate for the network. After auditing the station's prospects, Daystar decided not to go further with re-launching the station. It never resumed broadcasting, and the WBLU-LP license was cancelled on June 25, 2010.^[14][15]

References

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