WLEX is in, WKYT is out as official local TV partner of UK Athletics
The University of Kentucky Athletics Department announced Thursday that Lexington’s WLEX-TV, Channel 18, will become the new official TV partner of both UK Athletics and the UK Sports Network.
That new arrangement will end a relationship between UK Athletics and Lexington’s WKYT-TV, Channel 27, that reached back to the 1970s.
“I can’t tell you enough how excited we are about this,” WLEX Vice President and General Manager Andrew Shenkan said Thursday.
UK Sports Network television programming will now be available on WLEX and other participating UK Sports Network affiliates six days per week. In a news release, UK said the arrangement will give Kentucky sports “a local television presence among the best in all of college sports.”
“We are pleased to have a television partner in WLEX that shares our commitment to student-athletes and sharing their stories with the Big Blue Nation,” UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart said in the news release. “We are grateful for the amount of coverage this partnership will deliver and for the ways that the UK Sports Network continues to innovate in its media offerings.”
As part of the agreement, a program called “BBN Tonight” will air Monday through Friday from 7:30 to 8 p.m. on WLEX.
According to UK, the show will give viewers a daily 30-minute insider’s look into the Kentucky Athletics program while providing discussion and analysis of current topics by UK Sports Network talent. UK coaches and athletes will join the show nightly, the UK release says.
“When we first presented the idea (of a nightly show exclusively on Kentucky Wildcats sports), I don’t know if (UK) really realized what we were bringing forward,” Shenkan says. “It’s not very often you see, not just an SEC program, but any program in the country to have this kind of visibility on an almost daily basis.”
Shenkan says the show currently airing on WLEX in the 7:30 p.m. time slot, the locally produced “Hey, Kentucky,” will “metamorphosize” into the new nightly UK sports show. Current “Hey, Kentucky” hosts Mary Jo Perino and Keith Farmer will move to the new show, Shenkan says.
The current plan is for “BBN Tonight” to launch Sept. 14, Shenkan says, though that could change if the SEC football schedule is again impacted by the coronavirus.
On Saturday mornings, a program called “BBN Gameday” will be broadcast across local UK Sports Network affiliates and Fox Sports South. The program will preview that weekend’s Kentucky sports contests. The program will also be available digitally over various platforms, including YouTube and UKAthletics.com
The first episode of “BBN Gameday” will be broadcast by WLEX on Aug. 29 and will feature interviews with both UK men’s basketball coach John Calipari and Wildcats football head man Mark Stoops.
WLEX will produce “BBN Tonight,” “BBN Gameday” and all UK Sports Network special presentations. TJ Beisner, director of content development and digital media for JMI Sports — the multimedia rights holder for the University of Kentucky — will serve as executive producer.
For longtime Kentucky sports fans, the pairing of UK and WLEX is a reunion. Back into the 1960s, Adolph Rupp had his weekly coach’s show on WLEX.
However, when Joe B. Hall succeeded Rupp as UK men’s hoops head man in 1972-73, Hall moved the UK basketball coach’s show to WKYT.
“Joe went with (Channel) 27. He had friendships and stuff there,” says Oscar Combs, the former owner of The Cats’ Pause and an ex-UK Sports Network radio personality. “(Channel) 18 continued with Rupp’s show, he continued to do a show (competing with Hall’s) for one or two years. But that’s when (UK’s) change to (Channel) 27 happened.”
A WKYT official did not return a phone message Thursday.
WLEX is Lexington’s NBC affiliate and is owned and operated by Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Company.
“This has been a long time coming,” Shenkan said of WLEX returning as “the UK channel” in Lexington. “I know my predecessor, and other general managers before him, kind of wanted to be partnering with UK for a long time.”
This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 10:44 AM.
