WKON began broadcasting on September 23, 1968, as one of the ten charter stations in the Kentucky Educational Television network. Although WCET in Cincinnati, Ohio, already provided educational programming to northern Kentucky, WKON served as the default KET-network station for that part of the state until September 1969, when the network signed on WCVN-TV in Covington.
Digital television
The station's digital television companion signal, WKON-DT, began broadcasting in May 2002, as with most of the KET network stations.
Analog-to-digital conversion
On April 16, 2009, WKON shut down its analog signal over UHF channel 52 as part of the mandatory analog-to-digital television transition of 2009. All KET stations completed the transition on April 16. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 44. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as 52, WKON's former UHF analog channel, which was among the high-band UHF channels that were removed from broadcasting use.
WKON received a construction permit to reallocate its digital signal onto UHF channel 24, as part of KET's participation in the FCC's Spectrum incentive auction of 2016–17. The digital signal was scheduled to migrate to UHF channel 24 on October 18, 2019. UHF channel 44, is scheduled to be removed from broadcasting and reallocated for cellular and mobile data uses along with UHF band channels 38–51.
Availability
Transmitters
The KET network's satellite stations were strategically placed to ensure maximum coverage of the state. WKON's transmitter is located along KY 22 near its junction with KY 227 in Owen County just outside Owenton's eastern city limits. The station extends its coverage through the operation of a low-powered digital translator, W23DM-D. Licensed to Falmouth, it transmits from a tower north of Falmouth at Grimes Road, off KY 159. It serves as a replacement for WKON's former analog translator, W56AM, which was shut down in 2009 during the digital TV transition.
Over-the-air coverage
WKON primarily serves the southwestern portions of the Cincinnati media market in northern Kentucky, the northeastern portion of the Louisville market, and the northwestern areas of the Lexington market. Its signal can be received in an area from Lexington to Erlanger and Aurora, Indiana, and from the northeastern Louisville suburbs to Falmouth and Cynthiana. WKON's coverage area partially overlaps with that of other KET stations. This includes network flagship station WKLE Lexington, WKPC-TV Louisville, and WCVN-TV Covington. WKON's coverage area includes most rural areas between these three stations. The station provides a good signal to Kentucky's capital city of Frankfort and provides a grade-B signal to northern portions of the Lexington metro area and into Madison, Indiana.
