 | |
| City | Paducah, Kentucky |
|---|---|
| Channels | |
| Branding | My 49 WDKA |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
|
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| Operator | Sinclair Broadcast Group viaSSA |
| KBSI | |
| History | |
| Founded | October 2, 1989 |
First air date | June 5, 1997 (28 years ago) (1997-06-05) |
Former channel numbers |
|
Call sign meaning | Paducah (soundalike "K" substituting for "C") |
| Technical information[3] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 39561 |
| ERP | 1,000kW |
| HAAT | 327 m (1,073 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 37°23′42″N88°56′23″W / 37.39500°N 88.93972°W /37.39500; -88.93972 |
| Translator(s) | KBSI 23.2 Cape Girardeau, MO |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | kbsi23 |
WDKA (channel 49) is atelevision station licensed toPaducah, Kentucky, United States, serving as theMyNetworkTV affiliate forWestern Kentucky'sPurchase region,Southern Illinois and SoutheasternMissouri, andNorthwest Tennessee. It is owned by the Community News Media subsidiary ofStandard Media alongsideCape Girardeau, Missouri–licensedFox affiliateKBSI (channel 23);Sinclair Broadcast Group operates the two stations under ashared services agreement (SSA). WDKA and KBSI share studios on Enterprise Street in Cape Girardeau; WDKA's transmitter is located inVienna, Illinois.
In addition to its own digital signal, WDKA issimulcast instandard definition on KBSI's seconddigital subchannel (23.2) from a transmitter north of Cape Girardeau in unincorporatedCape Girardeau County.
WDKA began broadcasting on June 5, 1997. It was aUPN affiliate broadcasting ananalog signal on UHF channel 49.[4] In 2000, WDKA switched affiliations withlow-powered stationWQTV-LP (licensed toMurray, Kentucky) and repeater WQWQ-LP to become an affiliate ofThe WB. In September 2006, The WB and UPN merged to becomeThe 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, theAmerican Sports Network. ASN providedOhio Valley Conferencebasketball andConference USAfootball and basketball games to the station's viewers.[5][6] The ASN's programming content replacedSoutheastern Conference football and basketball broadcasts fromESPN Plus-orientedSEC TV, which was run from 2009 until 2014, which was discontinued because of the launch of the pay TV-exclusiveSEC Network.
On March 3, 2016, WDKA Acquisition Corporation (owned by Paul T. Lucci[7]) filed to sell WDKA to Sinclair's subsidiary WDKA Licensee, LLC.[8] Sinclair bought the station for $1.9 million.[9] The sale was completed on September 1, 2017.[10] Sinclair would continue to own WDKA and KBSI until both were sold to Community News Media for $28 million in a transaction that closed in 2021.[1][11]
On July 22, 2025, Sinclair announced that it had purchased the non-license assets of WDKA and KBSI, with an option to acquire the stations' broadcast licenses.[12]
On September 22, 2025, it was announced thatRincon Broadcasting Group would be buying WDKA and KBSI along with the other stations owned by Standard Media for $50 million, pending FCC approval.[2]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 49.1 | 720p | 16:9 | MyTV | MyNetworkTV |
| 49.2 | 480i | Charge! | Charge! | |
| 49.3 | Roar | Roar | ||
| 49.4 | TheNest | The Nest | ||
| 49.5 | Dabl | Dabl | ||
| 49.6 | CourtTV | Court TV | ||
| 49.7 | CHSN | Chicago Sports Network |
WDKA shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 49, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were totransition 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, usingvirtual channel 49.[14]
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.
Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the Commonwealth ofKentucky | ||
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Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Kentucky | ||
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Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Missouri | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
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Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Illinois | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
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| PBS | ||
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Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofTennessee | ||
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Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Tennessee | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
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| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
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** Owned by third parties and operated by Sinclair through various operating agreements. *** Owned by Sinclair and operated byMarquee Broadcasting. JV Joint venture. | ||||||||||||||||||
