WBKO

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 Media alongside Telemundo affiliate WBGS-CD (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 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.

In May 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 comparative 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 on October 7, 1959.

The station was originally assigned the call letters WITB, but the callsign was officially changed to WLTV on July 6, 1960. During the same month, Brown and his wife Nellie incorporated the Argus Broadcasting Corporation along with Joe Walters, a former RCA engineer. Construction of studios and a transmission facility began in early 1961 at a site 12.5 miles (20.1 km) north of Bowling Green, near Hadley, on U.S. 231.

WLTV made its on-air debut on June 3, 1962. It was an independent station for its first five years of operation, relying on old movies and plenty of live programs, with local 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 before finally obtaining an ABC affiliation in January 1967, with its first network programs airing on March 6. Programs were received by off-air pickup and by a private microwave link that fed ABC affiliate WSIX-TV in Nashville to new studios in the former National Guard armory in downtown Bowling Green, in which the station relocated its studios in 1968.

At 2 a.m. on September 26, 1969, residents throughout Bowling Green and surrounding Warren County heard a blast. When the sun came up, the transmitter engineer saw that the WLTV tower was leaning 15 degrees, having bowed in the middle, after an estimated 48 sticks of dynamite were set off at the base of the station's 603-foot (184 m) mast. Windows shook at the transmitter building, where debris from the explosion punctured holes in the roof, and in two surrounding homes; as the engineer had already left for the night, there were no injuries.

The investigation centered on one possible reason. WLTV had in recent months become known for editorials on crime in the Bowling Green area, including those related to a local car-theft ring. However, there was little information for an investigation to go on. A grand jury was convened in October, to which WLTV's news director testified, but no charges resulted; much of the evidence was destroyed by the blast itself.

Meanwhile, efforts immediately began to restore service from WLTV. With the microwave link to the Armory studios severed, equipment was carted back up to the transmitter site to permit limited local broadcasts, and a makeshift antenna out of chicken wire was tested. The damaged mast was purposely brought down October 1, permitting workers to begin erecting a temporary 150-foot (46 m) tower; an antenna was shipped by air freight from California. From these facilities, WLTV returned to the air on October 6.