WKOI-TV
WKOI-TV
Ion Television station in Richmond, Indiana
WKOI-TV (channel 43) is a television station licensed to Richmond, Indiana, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to the Dayton, Ohio, area. The station is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. Transmission facilities are provided by unrelated NBC affiliate WDTN (channel 2), which shares its digital channel with WKOI-TV through a channel sharing agreement, along with WDTN's sister station, Springfield, Ohio–licensed CW affiliate WBDT (channel 26); the transmitter is located on Frytown Road in southwest Dayton. For the purposes of its FCC correspondence, WKOI's official 'studio' facility is located at Scripps Center in downtown Cincinnati (along with many other Ion stations).
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|---|---|
| City | Richmond, Indiana |
| Channels | |
| Branding | Ion Television |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations | 43.1: Ion Television |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
First air date | May 11, 1982 (41 years ago) (1982-05-11) |
Former call signs | WKOI (1982–2003) |
Former channel number(s) |
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Call sign meaning | Station formerly served a tri-state region of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana during its Cincinnati market era |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 67869 |
| ERP | 1,000 kW |
| HAAT | 330 m (1,083 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 39°43′8″N 84°15′21.1″W[3] |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | iontelevision |
WKOI-TV signed on May 11, 1982, as an independent station airing religious programming. In 1986, it was purchased by the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). As a TBN O&O, the station cleared almost all of the network's programming, only breaking away from the network once a week for local community public affairs programming.
Until June 7, 2018,[4][5] WKOI-TV's transmitter was located on SR 73 in Milford Township, Butler County, Ohio, near Collinsville, approximately halfway between Richmond and Cincinnati. It thus served as the TBN station for Northern Kentucky, East Central Indiana and a large swath of southwestern Ohio (Greater Cincinnati and the Miami Valley). Even though its transmitter was based within the Cincinnati television market, its city of license, Richmond, is in the Dayton market. Thus, Nielsen counted the station as part of the Dayton market.
TBN entered into an option agreement with Ion Media on November 14, 2017, which gave Ion the option to acquire the licenses of WKOI-TV and three other TBN stations that had sold their spectrum in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s incentive auction; Ion exercised the option on May 24, 2018.[6] The sale was completed on September 25, 2018.[7]
Subchannel
Analog-to-digital conversion
WKOI-TV (along with all other TBN-owned full-power stations) shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 43, on April 16, 2009.[8] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 39,[9] using virtual channel 43. The station's signal was multiplexed, carrying TBN on 43.1, The Church Channel on 43.2, JCTV on 43.3, Enlace on 43.4 and Smile of a Child on 43.5. Later, The Church Channel became Hillsong Channel, JCTV became JUCE TV and was combined on 43.3 with Smile, and TBN Salsa was added on 43.5.
Spectrum sale and channel sharing agreement
On April 14, 2017, it was reported that WKOI-TV's over-the-air spectrum had been sold in the FCC's spectrum reallocation auction, fetching just over $20 million, with the station expected to go off the air.[10] On March 22, 2018, it was announced that WKOI-TV would share spectrum with unrelated NBC affiliate WDTN.[1]
On June 7, 2018, WKOI-TV began sharing WDTN's digital channel, with all TBN channels dropped, and Ion Television programming appearing on virtual channel 43.1.[4] WDTN also continued to carry Ion Television on virtual channel 2.3, as it had since February 1, 2018; on June 29, 2018, when WDTN's sister station WBDT also began sharing WDTN's digital signal, virtual channel 2.3 was dropped.
Former translators
WKOI-TV's programming was previously relayed on W20CL (channel 20) in Springfield, Ohio, and W36DG (channel 36) in Cincinnati. A deal was reached to sell W20CL (now WLWD-LD in Dayton)[11] to Word of God Fellowship, owner of the Daystar Television Network, on March 19, 2010;[12] W36DG was also sold to Daystar, and is now WDYC-LD.[13][14][15]
- "Facility Technical Data for WKOI-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
- "Licensing and Management System". enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov. Retrieved November 25, 2022.
- Filby, Max (June 6, 2018). "TV antenna not working? Local channels start changing frequencies soon". Dayton Daily News. Retrieved June 22, 2018.
- "Suspension of Operations of a DTV Station Application". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission. June 6, 2018. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
- "Application for Consent to Assignment of Broadcast Station Construction Permit or License". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. June 8, 2018. Retrieved June 11, 2018.
- "Consummation Notice". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. September 25, 2018. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
- "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved March 24, 2012.
- Gnau, Tom (April 14, 2017). "2 Dayton-area TV stations sell spectrum to FCC for $47.3 million". Dayton Daily News. Retrieved April 30, 2017.
- "APPLICATION FOR TRANSFER OF CONTROL OF A CORPORATE LICENSEE OR PERMITTEE, OR FOR ASSIGNMENT OF LICENSE OR PERMIT OF TV OR FM TRANSLATOR STATION OR LOW POWER TELEVISION STATION". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. March 24, 2010. Retrieved March 30, 2010.
- "APPLICATION FOR TRANSFER OF CONTROL OF A CORPORATE LICENSEE OR PERMITTEE, OR FOR ASSIGNMENT OF LICENSE OR PERMIT OF TV OR FM TRANSLATOR STATION OR LOW POWER TELEVISION STATION". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. November 30, 2009. Retrieved June 30, 2018.
- "BALTT-20091201AJW Authorization" (PDF). CDBS. Federal Communications Commission. January 15, 2010. Application Number: BALTT-20091201AJV, Call Sign: W45CP-D, Form: 732. Retrieved June 30, 2018.