WBDT & WKOI Closing Down

The local CW affiliate WBDT channel 26 and the Trinity Broadcast Network WKOI channel 43 will be closing down operations in the near future, exactly when isn't known but it could be anytime now. WBDT airs the CW Network on it's main channel and Bounce TV on 26.2 and Ion on 26.3 so those will be gone too. WKOI has five channels of religious programming, all of which will disappear when WKOI shuts down.

The reason is there was another spectrum auction and TV channels 38-51 were sold to wireless carriers. What that means is all TV stations across the nation that use any of those channels must move to a lower channel number or close down. Dayton has three channels which currently  use the sold spectrum, those are WKOI 43 (real channel 39), WHIO 7 (real channel 41) and WDTN 2 (real channel 50.) WHIO and WDTN chose to move to a lower channel whereas WKOI chose to take the money and run ($20,037,695.) WBDT 26, which airs on real channel 26 would have had to move too since the FCC will be moving all channels in Dayton as well as most TV markets to prevent channel interference from other markets. WBDT 26 will receive a payout of over $27,000,000.

Here a couple of list showing the new channel number for each station in Dayton and Cincinnati...

Dayton    

WDTN 2 moves from ch. 50 to ch. 31
WHIO 7 moves from ch. 41 to ch. 33
WPTD 16 moves from ch. 16 to ch. 35
WKEF 22 moves from ch. 18 to ch. 34
WRGT 45 moves from ch. 30 to ch. 36
WLWD 20 Unknown

Cincinnati

WLWT 5 moves from ch. 35 to ch. 20
WCPO 9 moves from ch. 22 to ch. 26
WKRC 12 stays on real ch. 12
WPTO 14 moves from ch. 28 to ch. 29
WXIX 19 moves from ch. 29 to ch. 15
WCET 48 moves from ch. 34 to ch. 17
WSTR 64 moves from ch. 33 to ch. 18