WNKY

Although granted a construction permit in 1983, the station did not begin broadcasting until December 17, 1989. At its first sign-on, the outlet operated as an independent station under the call sign WQQB. Airing an analog signal on UHF channel 40, the station had a general entertainment format with a mixture of low-budget syndicated programming, like old movies, sitcoms, and cartoons. Early on it struggled in a market used to all-VHF stations, where WBKO was all but dominant in Bowling Green proper, while stations from Louisville and Nashville were easily received either over-the-air or via cable and had equal loyalty that WQQB struggled to overcome. In the rush to come to air, it also had a poor overall signal that wasn't easily received, along with no coverage on area cable systems, as must-carry would not come into effect for another three years.

WQQB's original owner, Word Broadcasting Network, sold the station to Southeastern Communications for $1 million in 1991.[4] On January 10, 1992, WQQB changed its call letters to WKNT and became the area's first Fox affiliate with the then-new branding of Fox 40.[1][5][6][7] During its time as a Fox station in the 1990s, WKNT broadcast select Southeastern Conference football games via Jefferson Pilot Sports until 2002 when ABC affiliate WBKO started to air those games to go with JP Sports (later Lincoln Financial Sports, then Raycom Sports) SEC basketball broadcasts.[8][9][10] Except on Saturday, WKNT aired programming from the Shop at Home Network from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. until that network's closure in 2005. Despite being a Fox affiliate, UPN's block programming Disney's One Too aired on the station from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. weekday mornings and from 5:00 to 7:00 a.m. Sunday mornings to cover the children's educational programming requirements. It was the only UPN programming that was ever available in Bowling Green;[8] all other UPN programming was only receivable via WUXP-TV in Nashville, as the de facto UPN affiliate for Bowling Green.

On January 1, 1997, operation of WKNT was taken over by Crossroads Communications under a local marketing agreement (LMA).[11] Crossroads, a subsidiary of Northwest Broadcasting,[12] would buy the station outright on July 17, 2000.[13]

In March 2001, Fox announced that it had dropped its affiliation with WKNT because the station did not comply with the terms of the affiliation agreement; almost immediately, NBC agreed to affiliate with the station.[14] This was Bowling Green's first local NBC affiliate. On March 27, 2001, the station changed its call sign to WNKY.[6] At the same time, the station boosted its power from 776,000 watts to 1,640,000 watts, directional with a null to the east. Previously, WBKO was the only station in Bowling Green affiliated with a Big Three network, and WSMV-TV in Nashville was NBC's affiliate of record in south-central Kentucky. After WNKY switched to NBC, WSMV was still broadcast to the Bowling Green market where WNKY could not reach, and some cable systems continued to carry WSMV. Following the loss of channel 40's Fox affiliation, Fox programming was provided to Bowling Green on cable via Nashville affiliate WZTV, which was available over-the-air in the southern portion of the market; cable systems in Hart County carried Louisville affiliate WDRB instead.

In March 2003, Northwest Broadcasting sold WNKY to Max Media for $7 million.[15][16][17] On December 12 of that year, it signed on a digital signal on UHF channel 16 from its transmitter tower in Smiths Grove. WNKY-DT was then added to digital cable systems including Insight in Bowling Green and the Electric Plant Board in Glasgow.[18][19]

On August 7, 2004, WNKY began airing NBC network programming in high definition just in time to broadcast the network's coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. WNKY also installed a Dolby model 569 AC-3 surround sound encoder to relay the 5.1 full surround audio from the network.

On June 3, 2010, as a result of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010, Dish Network began offering both of WNKY's digital subchannels.[20]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fined the station's licensee, MMK License, $39,000 on November 5, 2013 due to a mid-June 2012 ad filmed and aired by WNKY which featured Emergency Alert System (EAS) tones used in a promotional and non-warning situation. WNKY was also required to launch a local campaign about the EAS, air additional emergency preparation public service announcements, and lease space on their tower for modernized warning equipment to the Warren County Emergency Management agency and the City of Bowling Green.[21][22]

On April 5, 2017, Max Media announced that it would sell WNKY to Marquee Broadcasting for $5.6 million.[23][24] The sale was completed on June 30.[25][26]

On January 1, 2015, the Glasgow Electric Plant Board dropped both of WNKY's digital subchannels from its lineup because of a 1,000 percent increase in cost.[27] Both WNKY and WNKY-DT2 returned to the Electric Plant Board's cable lineup in February 2015 after agreeing to a 100 percent increase instead of 1,000. The digital subchannels were placed on different channels (WNKY on 16 and WNKY-DT2 on 23) without high definition service.[28]

WNKY-DT2 is the CBS-affiliated second digital subchannel of WNKY, broadcasting in high definition on UHF channel 24.2 (or virtual channel 40.2 via PSIP).

On October 11, 2006, WNKY reached an agreement with CBS to air that network on a new digital subchannel.[29] It was officially launched as WNKY-DT2 on February 1, 2007, which finally gave Bowling Green a locally-based CBS station. Until that point, the Bowling Green market was one of the few areas east of the Mississippi River without its own CBS affiliate, and the area were served by WTVF in Nashville and WLKY in Louisville as the de facto CBS affiliates. WNKY-DT2 is also available to Mediacom cable customers in Butler and Edmonson counties, including Morgantown and Brownsville.[19] As of December 2017, WNKY claimed exclusivity of NBC and CBS affiliates on the Glasgow Electric Plant Board cable system. In January 2018, the CBS subchannel was upgraded to high definition, albeit in 720p rather than the network's recommended 1080i format to preserve bandwidth. A direct-to-cable full 1080i high definition feed of WNKY-DT2 is available on select cable providers.

WNKY-DT3 is the MeTV-affiliated third digital subchannel of WNKY, broadcasting in standard definition on UHF channel 24.3 (or virtual channel 40.3 via PSIP).

WNKY broadcast a testing loop on a new subchannel on December 20, 2017; the testing loop promoted MeTV. This third subchannel began to carry MeTV on January 1, 2018.

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

On June 12, 2009, WNKY turned off its analog transmitter in compliance with the FCC-mandated digital TV transition of 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition channel assignment, UHF channel 16, using PSIP to see it displayed as virtual channel 40. WNKY was the last station within the Bowling Green market to make the transition.[31][32]

After the FCC's 2016 spectrum auction, WNKY filed for a construction permit for its digital subchannel to relocate to UHF channel 24. WNKY changed to its current frequency at 12:01 a.m. on October 18, 2019.[33]