WKBT-DT (channel 8) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

licensed to

La Crosse, Wisconsin La Crosse is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of La Crosse County. Positioned alongside the Mississippi River, La Crosse is the largest city on Wisconsin's western border. La Crosse's population as of the 2020 census w ...

, United States, serving the La Crosse–

Eau Claire Eau Claire (French for "clear water", ''pl.'' ''eaux claires'') is the name of a number of locations and features in North America. The name is pronounced as if it were spelled "O'Clare". Place names (Canada) Communities *Eau Claire, Calgary, a n ...

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: * Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand * Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, a ...

as an affiliate of CBS and MyNetworkTV. Owned by Morgan Murphy Media, the station maintains studios on South 6th Street in downtown La Crosse, and its transmitter is located on Silver Creek Road in

Galesville, Wisconsin Galesville is a city in Trempealeau County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,662 at the 2020 census. It is located where Beaver Creek flows into a wide area of the Mississippi River valley. The creek is impounded to form Lake Marinu ...

History

WKBT signed-on August 8, 1954, as a sister station to WKBH radio (AM 1410, now WIZM). In the

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...

, the "T" for "television" replaced the "H" to differentiate the stations. It originally carried programming from all four major networks (CBS, NBC,

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

, and DuMont) but has always been a primary CBS affiliate. It lost DuMont after that network shut down in 1956 and lost NBC in 1958 after La Crosse and

were collapsed into a single

. WKBT then shared ABC with NBC affiliate

WEAU-TV WEAU (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, United States, serving the La Crosse–Eau Claire market as an affiliate of NBC and The CW Plus. The station is owned by Gray Television, and maintains studios on Sou ...

(channel 13, based in Eau Claire) until WXOW (channel 19) signed-on from La Crosse in 1970. On April 16, 1965, during the worst of the famous 1965 flood, the downtown La Crosse building that housed both WKBT and WKBH burned to the ground; WKBT would rebuild its current building on the same site. WKBT was sold to Harold F. Gross, a businessman from

Lansing, Michigan Lansing () is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is mostly in Ingham County, although portions of the city extend west into Eaton County and north into Clinton County. The 2020 census placed the city's population at 112,644, making ...

in 1970, who owned WJIM-AM- FM- TV in that city. Gross Telecasting sold both stations to Backe Communications in 1984, following a licensing dispute involving WJIM-TV (which changed its call letters to WLNS-TV). Backe sold both stations to Young Broadcasting in 1986. In March 2000, Young sold WKBT to current owner Morgan Murphy Media (ironically, the founding original owner of WEAU-TV from 1953 to 1962). Throughout its history, WKBT's news operation has tended to favor their news coverage on their home city of La Crosse, Winona, Minnesota, and the

Coulee Region The Driftless Area, a topographical and cultural region in the American Midwest, comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme northwestern corner of Illinois. Never covered by ice during the last ...

, with a secondary emphasis on Eau Claire and the

Chippewa Valley The Chippewa Valley is a valley in Wisconsin, US. History The valley was first inhabited by the Ojibwe and colonized by German and Scandinavian immigrants. The region also has a large Hmong community. While the term "Chippewa Valley" technicall ...

, ceding to WEAU's geographical strength overall in Eau Claire. However, WKBT's weather coverage is balanced equally to cover the entire market. WKBT's transmitter, in Galesville, is located about north of the channel 8 studios in order to provide a clear signal to the entire market. If put up next to Chicago's

Willis Tower The Willis Tower (originally the Sears Tower) is a 108-story, skyscraper in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, United States. Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), ...

(formerly known as the Sears Tower), the WKBT transmitter would surpass the upper roof and fall just about short of the highest antenna on top. On January 30, 2006, WKBT signed-on a new second

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...

to serve as the market's

UPN The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which prod ...

affiliate. Class A station

KQEG-CA KQEG-CD (channel 23) is a low-power, Class A television station licensed to La Crescent, Minnesota, United States. It is a translator of La Crosse, Wisconsin–licensed CBS affiliate WKBT-DT (channel 8) which is owned by Morgan Murphy Media. ...

had previously dropped its affiliation with the network at the end of the previous week. As a result of UPN and

The WB The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...

merging in September 2006, ABC affiliate WXOW (and its

semi-satellite A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...

WQOW WQOW (channel 18) is a television station in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, United States, serving the Chippewa Valley as an affiliate of American Broadcasting Company, ABC. Owned by Entertainment Studios, Allen Media Broadcasting, the station has studios ...

) gained

The CW ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

affiliation on digital subchannels. This was a result of their association with The WB through a cable-only station ("WBCZ" on channel 15) through

The WB 100+ The WB 100+ Station Group (originally called The WeB from its developmental stages until March 1999) was a national programming service of The WB—owned by the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner, the Tribune Company, and group fo ...

. Meanwhile, WKBT-DT2 joined the other new broadcast network, MyNetworkTV.

Programming

Syndicated programming on WKBT includes ''

Entertainment Tonight ''Entertainment Tonight'' (or simply ''ET'') is an American Broadcast syndication, first-run syndicated news broadcasting news magazine, newsmagazine program that is distributed by CBS Media Ventures throughout the United States and owned by Para ...

'', ''

The Jennifer Hudson Show ''The Jennifer Hudson Show'' is an American syndicated daytime talk show. Hosted by singer and actress Jennifer Hudson, the series premiered on September 12, 2022. Production In November 2021, ''Deadline'' reported that Warner Bros. Televisio ...

'' and '' The Drew Barrymore Show'' among others. WKBT is one of a few CBS affiliates to air paid programming on weekday mornings.

News operation

WKBT presently broadcasts 34 hours of local newscasts each week (with six hours each weekday and two hours each on Saturdays and Sundays).

Controversy

In October 2012, WKBT was in the national spotlight when morning news anchor Jennifer Livingston addressed a viewer who criticized her about her weight and issued an on-air commentary about

bullying Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) of an imba ...

and being a

role model A role model is a person whose behaviour, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people. The term ''role model'' is credited to sociologist Robert K. Merton, who hypothesized that individuals compare themselves ...

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed: WKBT added digital subchannel 8.2 in January 2006, a channel originally affiliated with UPN before joining MyNetworkTV the following September; it launched with only a weekend's notice after KQEG-CD's UPN disaffiliation in the wake of the announcement of the UPN–WB merger into The CW. The station would add a second subchannel, affiliated with

Ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by conven ...

in January 2017; a third subchannel, affiliated with

Dabl Dabl () is an American lifestyle-oriented digital multicast television network owned by the CBS Media Ventures subsidiary of Paramount Global. The company's formerly-owned other subchannel network, Decades, through CBS News and Stations was l ...

, signed on in September 2019.

Analog-to-digital conversion

On March 28, 2003, WKBT signed on its digital signal on

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

channel 41. The station has been digital-only since February 17, 2009. In the summer of 2011, WKBT became the first station in the market to air newscasts in 16:9 enhanced definition

widescreen Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...

Translators

References

External links

WKBT "News 8"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wkbt-Dt CBS network affiliates Morgan Murphy Media stations MyNetworkTV affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1954 1954 establishments in Wisconsin KBT-DT Ion Television affiliates Dabl affiliates