WLKY (channel 32) is a television station in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, affiliated with CBS. The station is owned by Hearst Television, and maintains studios on Mellwood Avenue (near I-71) on Louisville's east side; its transmitter is located in rural northeastern Floyd County, Indiana (northeast of Floyds Knobs). History As an ABC affiliate The station, initially operating an ABC affiliate, first signed on the air on September 16, 1961, at 2 p.m. Eastern time with the dedication program entitled Kickoff 32. It originally operated from studio facilities located on Park Drive in the suburb of Shively, and was owned by Kentuckiana Television, a group of local investors headed by aluminum magnate Archibald Cochran. Previously, ABC had been limited to off-hours clearances on NBC affiliate WAVE-TV (channel 3) and then-CBS affiliate WHAS-TV (channel 11). Although Louisville had been large enough since the early 1950s to support three network affiliates, the market had a fairly long wait to gain full-time ABC network service. The Louisville market is a fairly large market geographically, and also includes some rugged terrain. The nearest VHF allocations, channels 7 and 13, had been respectively allocated to Evansville and Bowling Green. These factors caused the first attempt at a full-time ABC affiliate in the area, WKLO-TV, UHF channel 21, to shut down after only six months on the air. With this in mind, prospective owners were skittish about setting up shop on one of the available UHF allocations in the area. But, a growing Louisville market and a stronger-performing ABC, with new programming like American Football League games and more popular prime time shows (e.g. Desilu's The Untouchables), convinced Cochran to take a chance on starting the station. It would eventually benefit from the All-Channel Receiver Act of 1962, which requires television sets manufactured in 1962 or later to receive channels on both the VHF and UHF bands. Kentuckiana Television sold WLKY to Sonderling Broadcasting (which would acquire several radio and television stations in mid-sized markets such as WAST (now WNYT) in Albany, New York, until that company merged with Viacom in 1979) in 1967. The station moved to its current location on Mellwood Avenue in 1968. In 1973, Sonderling sold the station to Denver-based Combined Communications. Combined eventually merged its television properties with the Gannett Company in 1979. In February 1979, WLKY was forced off the air for three days when the station's transmission facility was directly