WDKY-TV (channel 56) is a television station licensed to Danville, Kentucky, United States, serving the Lexington area as an affiliate of the Fox network. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group and maintains studios on Euclid Avenue in Lexington's Chevy Chase neighborhood and a transmitter southeast of the city off Interstate 75. Built as the market's first Independent station in early 1986, the station has been affiliated with Fox since the network started later that year. It has aired local newscasts since 1995, first in partnership with another local station, WKYT-TV, and since 2022 on an independent basis. History On December 29, 1982, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted a construction permit to Robert Bertram, an attorney, to build a new channel 56 television station at Danville. However, it took more than three years to get the station built. Officials with the Kentucky Airport Zoning Commission fretted over proximity of the proposed Mercer County mast to several aviation facilities, and while the zoning board overruled objections from the aviation community, the FCC refused to approve the site. With a busy law practice, Bertram found he no longer had time to pursue construction of the station, having already secured an alternative tower site in Garrard County. In 1985, Bertram sold the WDKY construction permit to Backe Communications. Backe set out to build studios in Danville and Lexington, and WDKY-TV began broadcasting on February 10, 1986. It was the first independent station in the Lexington market and became a charter affiliate of Fox later that year. After several venture capital investors in Backe Communications opted to exit television, owner John Backe reluctantly put WDKY and other stations up for sale. In 1989, Backe agreed to sell the station to the Pruett family of Little Rock, Arkansas, through MMC Television Corporation; the Pruetts cited the station's profitability and the demise of its only independent competitor, WLKT (channel 62), which had operated for less than a year. The deal, however, collapsed in March 1990 when the Pruetts failed to arrange the necessary financing. Act III Broadcasting was then retained by Backe as a management consultant with the option to buy a minority stake in the station. Backe sold WDKY in 1992 to Superior Communications, a company owned by 34-year-old Perry Sook; it was his first TV station property. It took Sook 14 months to find a station to buy and assemble financing to