WBKO (channel 13) is a television station in Bowling Green, Kentucky, United States, affiliated with ABC, Fox, and The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Telemundo affiliate WBGS-LD (channel 34). The two stations maintain studios on Russellville Road (US 68/KY 80) near its junction with Interstate 165 on the west side of Bowling Green. The transmitter facility is located along Kentucky Route 185 (Richardsville Road) in unincorporated northern Warren County. WBKO went on the air in 1962 as WLTV; after five years without a network affiliation, it has been aligned with ABC since 1967. In 1969, WLTV's tower was blown off its base in a dynamiting incident. The station was sold the next year and new transmission facilities built, emerging as the only source of television news and information for much of south-central Kentucky for most of its history. It has been owned by Gray since 2002. History As WLTV In 1956, two groups filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to build a television station on channel 13 in Bowling Green, the only allotted VHF channel for southern Kentucky. The first group to file was Sarkes Tarzian, who owned television stations in Indiana. A second application followed shortly thereafter, from George A. Brown, Jr., the Kentucky representative for Nashville-based General Shoe Corporation. It was not until February 1957 that the commission designated the applications against each other for hearing, and it took another 18 months for a hearing examiner to give the initial nod for the channel to Tarzian, citing his superior programming plans and broadcast experience as a factor that outweighed the local ownership represented by Brown. Brown appealed the initial decision, and the FCC granted him the permit in 1959. Taking the call letters WITB (changed before launch to WLTV), Brown and his wife Nellie incorporated the Argus Broadcasting Corporation in 1960 along with Joe Walters, a former RCA engineer. Construction of studios and a transmission facility began in early 1961 at a site north of Bowling Green, near Hadley, on U.S. 231. WLTV made its debut on June 3, 1962. It was an independent station for its first five years of operation, with productions including live wrestling, musical shows, and news, befitting the slogan "Wonderfully Live Television". One children's program, Sundown and Friends, used live animals raised at the station site at Hadley. The station continued without network programming for nearly five years