News operation
As the first commercial television station to launch in Bowling Green, WBKO has been a longtime leader according to Nielsen ratings. Even after the sign-on of WQQB in 1989, WBKO has remained the dominant outlet for south central Kentucky. However, it has also competed with Nashville stations transmitting into parts of the Bowling Green area. As the area's original Fox affiliate, WKNT's first newscasts began during the 1993 fall season;[11][55] Warren County Close-Up was the title of the station's newscast for the beginning.[56] Later, in 1995, the newscasts expanded when the station teamed up with Campbellsville-based WGRB (also a Fox affiliate at the time, but would later become WB/CW affiliate WBKI-TV, now a defunct station) to form a two-station cooperative local "network" to jointly produce a local newscast. This joint news department even employed local students from Western Kentucky University in varied aspects.[2] However, by 1996, the newscasts ended due to low ratings on WKNT's part, due to WBKO's continued dominance in news ratings in the Bowling Green area, as well as financial difficulties; in 1995, the Associated Press filed a civil lawsuit against the station for back payments for the AP Newspower reports utilized by the station.
After the station's affiliation switch to NBC in March 2001, newscasts returned to the station's schedule when WNKY began simulcasting WSMV's 10 p.m. newscasts as part of a cooperative relationship between the two stations. These simulcasts lasted until the end of the 2002–03 television season, when they were replaced with syndicated programming. However, only the introduction originated from WNKY, and a WNKY logo covered WSMV's channel 4 logo. WNKY's commercials usually covered up the commercials run by WSMV.[58]
On September 10, 2005, WNKY slowly re-entered the market with an unusual weather-only approach. Instead of full newscasts, it offered weekday morning and nightly local weather forecast cut-ins provided through AccuWeather. It began airing five-minute First Look AccuWeather forecasts on weeknights. In December of that year, weekend weather forecasts were added to the schedule.[29]
In January 2006, locally produced weather updates began airing during NBC's Today Show on weekday mornings from 7 to 11 a.m. The updates cover regular and severe weather events. The weather team originally consisted of four employees—three human and one non-human member, "Radar the Weather Dog". Radar was a purebred Border Collie that was adopted from the Bowling Green/Warren County Humane Society in 2005. Radar began serving as the station's mascot when the weather show began with meteorologist Chris Sowers.[59][60] Viewers would often see Radar interacting with one of the three meteorologists as they begin the weather updates. The weather dog idea may have been inspired by KPRC-TV in Houston which once had its own "Radar, the Weather Dog". WNKY's former sister station KYTX, in Tyler, Texas, took a similar approach with "Stormy, the Weather Dog." Radar died at age 16 in December 2017. He was replaced by his sister, "Soky", as the station's mascot.[61][62]
In late January 2009, in a second attempt to compete with WBKO, WNKY launched a weekday morning show called Bowling Green Today produced in partnership with the Bowling Green Daily News. It aired for a half-hour at 6:30 a.m.[29] The Daily News provided short local news updates and WNKY produces traditional weather segments. The show was replayed at 9 a.m. on WNKY's CBS-affiliated second subchannel. WNKY did not produce newscasts in the traditional 5 p.m., 6 p.m., and 10 p.m. slots or on weekends. During the summer of 2012, WNKY debuted a weekend news magazine program called In KY News, which included interviews and highlighted events in and around south central Kentucky.
On October 26, 2015, Bowling Green Today was renamed SoKY Sunrise, and was expanded to a one-hour program.[63][64] On April 10, 2017, a new program titled SoKY at Noon made its debut on WNKY-DT2.[65]
On February 19, 2018, WNKY began broadcasting live half-hour newscasts on weeknights at 5 p.m. on its main channel, and at 6 p.m. on WNKY-DT2. This marked the first time WNKY broadcast an evening newscast in any timeslot since the station ended simulcasts of WSMV's 10 p.m. newscasts in 2003.[66][67]
From November 6 to 13, 2020, the station's newscasts were temporarily suspended because some employees were possibly exposed to COVID-19. Newscasts resumed on November 16.
On July 19, 2021, WNKY debuted its 10 p.m. weeknight newscast on its main subchannel. On March 7, 2022, the station began to simulcast their 10 p.m. newscasts over WNKY and WNKY-DT2.[68] The simulcast of SoKY Sunrise between the main channel and the DT2 subchannel began in January 2023. The station continued to produce the six-minute weather updates on Saturday and Sunday nights at 10 p.m. on the DT1 and DT2 subchannels until September 9, 2023, when the station began airing 10 p.m. newscasts on Saturdays and Sundays.[69] The station began airing a 9 a.m. newscast over WNKY-DT2 on weekdays, beginning on September 15, 2025.
As of September 2025, the station produces a total of 19 hours per week of news content. This includes 10 hours of news content on the main channel and 7½ hours exclusively on WNKY-DT2; 3½ hours of news content is simulcast between the DT1 and DT2 subchannels.
