WKRN-DT2

WKRN-DT2 is the MeTV affiliated television station that is licensed to Nashville, Tennessee, and serving the Nashville media market. It is a digital subchannel of ABC affiliate WKRN-TV, which is owned by Media General. It is broadcast over-the-air on virtual channel 2.2 (UHF channel 27.2). WKRN-DT2's parent station's studios are located on Murfreesboro Road (US Routes 70S and 41 on the southeast side of Nashville, and its transmitter is located in Forest Hills in southern Davidson County.

History

As Nashville WX Channel

WKRN launched the subchannel in 2008 as the exclusively local 24-hour weather channel for the Nashville area. It was branded on-air as the Nashville Weather Channel, but stylized as the Nashville WX Channel. The subchannel also simulcasted the main channel’s wall-to-wall severe weather coverage when a tornado warning was issued for any part of WKRN’s coverage area. The Channel was somewhat of a locally oriented version of the AccuWeather channel, except that it implements a backward L bar for its screen orientation, with an information crawl on the bottom of the screen. It provided pre-recorded weather segments produced by the WKRN Weather Team, and it featured radar imagery, the current time, temperature, and precipitation count in the Downtown Nashville area. ^[1] This subchannel was also ad-supported, for commercials are shown between a replay of the taped weather segments, and the next time they show the weather slides with music in the background. ^[2] Like the digital weather channels of other stations formerly owned by Young Broadcasting, the channel is produced in-house with no outside assistance from any national services (such as The Local AccuWeather Channel) and is fully automated using the station's weather computers. This format was similar to that of WBAY-DT2, the local weather-oriented second subchannel of Green Bay, Wisconsin area ABC affiliate WBAY-TV, one of WKRN's sister stations.

In addition, some syndicated programming aired on this channel, most notably on Sunday Mornings where Children's educational programming is offered through syndication, mainly including Canadian-imported syndicated show, Edgemont, in order for the subchannel to meet FCC required criteria. The syndicated version of Storm Stories was also shown on WKRN-DT2 on weeknights at 7 p.m. CT. Both Edgemont & Storm Stories was discontinued a month before WKRN-DT2 switched to the MeTV affiliation.

It previously shown Atlantic Coast Conference basketball and football games from Raycom Sports from 2012^[3] until late August 2014, when MyNetworkTV affiliate WUXP took over those rights for the purpose to serve as a replacement for the syndicated Southeastern Conference football and basketball packages by ESPN Plus-produced SEC TV (those were previously provided by Jefferson-Pilot/Raycom Sports until 2009), which were discontinued because of the launch of the new cable-exclusive SEC Network.

In 2014, a Wikipedia user listed WKRN-DT2 as an affiliate of WeatherNation TV, but it never aired programming from that network. WZTV-DT2, the second subchannel of local Fox affiliate WZTV, became a WeatherNation affiliate in November 2014.

WKRN-DT2’s programming was simulcast on WKRN-DT3, beginning on May 30, 2015, when the Live Well Network (which was previously broadcast on WKRN-DT3) ceased national distribution outside of ABC’s owned-and-operated stations. This ended on December 30, 2015, when WKRN added Justice Network to the third subchannel.

MeTV Affiliation

It was reported that WKRN-DT2 would affiliate with MeTV, and did so at the stroke of midnight on February 1, 2016, Replacing The Nashville WX Channel.^[4] MeTV was first carried as an affiliate on Low Powered Station WJDE-LD on their Main Channel of 31.1 from 2012 until 2016. WJDE also carried all of MeTV's Programming Full Time, since that Station did not broadcast any local programming what so ever, since WJDE signed on in 1986, it carried the Full Time Satellite Feed of Home Shopping Network, before WJDE switched to MeTV in 2012. At the same time on February 1, 2016, When WKRN-DT2 switched from the Nashville WX Channel to carry MeTV, WJDE-LD's Main Channel switch from MeTV to Heroes & Icons.

Since the Bowling Green, Kentucky market does not have a MeTV affiliate of its own at this time, WKRN-DT2 is now technically the default MeTV affiliate for viewers in at least the southern half of that market area who can receive the signal, although CBS affiliate WLKY of Louisville, Kentucky, which also carries MeTV on its second subchannel (WLKY-DT2), are both carried on the South Central Rural Telephone Cooperative cable system, which serves cable subscribers in the Cave City, Glasgow, Edmonton and Munfordvile areas.

Programming

WKRN-DT2 clears all of MeTV's programming since the subchannel switched to MeTV from The Nashville WX Channel on February 1st, 2016.

Availability

The WKRN-DT2 is carried on various cable systems in Middle Tennessee, including but not limited to Comcast/Xfinity (channel 245), and Charter (channel 181). WKRN-DT2 is also carried on locally oriented cable systems in various middle Tennessee locations, including Clarksville's CDE Lightband (on channel 29), and several others throughout the Nashville market. ^{[5] [6]} Viewers in the Kentucky segment of the Nashville market and/or within WKRN's signal coverage area can only access the channel over-the-air via an antenna, except for SCRTC customers in Allen and Monroe Counties in Kentucky, in which the WKRN-DT2 is carried.^[7] WKRN-DT2 is also carried on cable channel 15 in the Logan County seat of Russellville through the cable system of the Russellville Electric Plant Board. ^[8]

In Lincoln County, Tennessee, the only Middle Tennessee county in the Huntsville, Alabama DMA, it is available on Fayetteville Public Utilities Cable Channel 244.^[9]

References

External links

• MeTV Network Official Site
• WKRN Nashville's News 2 Official Site
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WKRN
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WKRN-TV