From the online newspaper archive I subscribe to, in the early to mid-1960s Frankfort CATV carried WLWT, WCPO, WAVE, WHAS and WKYT, but not WKRC and WLEX.
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Lexington, KY (December 7, 1981)
- Thread starter Bluenoser
- Start date
The 1963 Television Factbook shows WLEX as having under 25% viewership in Franklin County, and WKYT 25-50%.
For Cincinnati, WCPO, WLWT, and WKRC were 50+, 25-50, and under 25 respectively.
For Louisville, WAVE and WHAS were 50+. WLKY hadn't started providing data yet, but they had a very small contour that didn't get anywhere near Frankfort.
The UHF situation was evidently a function of not all sets having UHF capability, suboptimal tuners and antennas, and terrain. Frankfort sits down in a kind of valley. To this day, Frankfort is kind of split between Lexington and Louisville viewing (Cincinnati is long gone except for the intrepid few who would still have rooftop antennas up to the task), but a county can only be in one DMA, and Lexington wins that contest.
When I stayed overnight at a hotel in Frankfort, Kentucky twenty years ago, I recall that the cable tv system in Frankfort carried the main networks from Lexington and Louisville even though Frankfort is in the Lexington market. It did not carry any stations from Cincinnati.
I believe Frankfort is 30 miles from Lexington and 50 miles from Louisville.
Frankfort was in the Louisville market until the mid-1980s. It is down in a valley of sorts, and the terrain is difficult for UHF reception from Lexington. Moreover, Louisville viewing habits got started early in the TV era, and never quite went away. The county is actually kind of "neither fish nor fowl", but since a county can be in one and only one DMA, it falls into the Lexington market. Cincinnati stations were carried on Frankfort cable in the 1960s and 1970s, and are marginally receivable in Frankfort with a high-gain antenna, but they were dropped from the cable at some point, and I have to imagine that in the present day, only the most intrepid and determined OTA viewers, willing to invest in that kind of antenna (such as the Televes DATBOSS), would be able to receive them.
(Yes, I know, this is basically what I wrote on the subject back in July, when you get to my age, sometimes you forget things now and then, and, hey, I got to put in a plug for the DATBOSS. We are supposed to respect our elders đź‘´)
Radio would probably be easier.
Frankfort seems always to have had a high cable penetration, and at one time had two parallel systems, one municipally-owned, one private. IIRC they both carried basically the same channels.
When I worked at the state capitol building in Frankfort during 1986-1994, there were TVs in the offices, and WXIX was the only Cincinnati station carried by that time. The full complement of Louisville and Lexington stations were also carried.
According to TVTV.us, WXIX is still carried on cable in Winchester and Mount Sterling. Georgetown cable carries several Cincinnati stations. TVTV returns information for Georgetown cable when you look up Paris as well.
WXIX and WCPO were carried on Morehead cable in the 1970s and possibly later, but now, they carry the Lexington station lineup as well as a nearly-complete lineup from the Charleston-Huntington market, including WCHS. Back then, WCPO was their second CBS affiliate in lieu of WCHS. I remember as a youngster the Holiday Inn in Morehead showing WXIX on the lobby TV, and I said to myself, "hey, what's this cool station?". I didn't think of Cincinnati stations being available in Morehead.
Before it was taken offline, Zap2it showed that Winchester (and Richmond) now only carry the Lexington market TV stations -- but not sure if it was a fully reliable resource in that regard.
This Zap2it link (via Gracenote) still works... and yes, only Lexington-area stations.
Granted, TVTV is not always the most reliable of resources, I'm just reporting what their website says. I can't speak for Zap2it.
I recently saw via early 1980s editions of The Winchester Sun for their TV listings, WXIX was the only non-Lexington station carried on the CATV system.