WOKY

WOKY is an affiliate of The CW, serving MIlwaukee, WI and the greater Milwaukee area. Broadcasting on channel 18, WOKY is owned and operated by Island Television. Launching in 1966, WOKY was a longtime independent before finally signing with The WB in 1995, and when The WB and UPN merged in 2006, WOKY became an affiliate of The CW. In addition to running The CW's full schedule, WOKY also airs syndicated programming, including Maury, The Jerry Springer Show, and The Steve Wilkos Show. WOKY also operates two subchannels: 18.2 (for Nick GAS) and 18.3 (for Nick Rewind).

History
Gaylord Broadcasting launched the station in 1966. This started the station on its path to become one of the most popular independent stations in the country, with strong local programming such as The Bowling Game (which would eventually be syndicated across the Midwest), along with a strong slate of syndicated programs such as cartoons, classic off-network sitcoms, more recent sitcoms, drama series, sports, and movies. Like its Gaylord stablemates, channel 18 focused on programming geared towards rural and suburban audiences located in Milwaukee's outer ring, opposed to the more urban fare presented by Milwaukee's other stations. Longtime staples on WOKY included Hee Haw (which was produced by sister division Gaylord Entertainment), The Lawrence Welk Show as well as syndicated reruns of Green Acres and The Andy Griffith Show. The station also aired All Star Wrestling during the 1970s and 1980s.

The station aired the CBS version of The Merv Griffin Show after WCAN (channel 25) rejected it. After Griffin was cancelled by CBS, WOKY aired The Dick Cavett Show, which had been preempted by WITI. The station also aired The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from 1984 to 1988, due to WMIW (channel 2) being denied permission by NBC to air the program in a later timeslot so that it could air syndicated programs after its late evening newscast.

As cable television became more popular, WOKY became a regional superstation. At its height, it was available on nearly every cable system in Wisconsin, as well as a few providers in Minnesota and the Dakotas. This resulted in the station rebranding as "Super 18, Wisconsin's Superstation" in 1987. Despite its status as one of the strongest independent stations in the country, it turned down the Fox affiliation. Gaylord was unwilling to dump its stronger syndicated program inventory for Fox's unproven slate. However, most Fox stations were essentially programmed as independents until the network began airing a full week's worth of programming in 1993, so WOKY would not have had to give up too many syndicated shows. The main factor in Gaylord's thinking was that Wisconsin's smaller markets had enough stations to provide Fox affiliates for those areas. The only market where a station did not link up with Fox right away as a full-fledged affiliate was Wausau.

WOKY continued to be the leading independent station in the market until Fox came into its own, resulting in a boost in WFXC's ratings. The station's ownership went into a state of flux after Gaylord began easing out of the television business (except for its stake in The Nashville Network).

WOKY was originally tapped to be a charter affiliate of The WB Television Network along with Gaylord's other independent stations. The new network was due to launch in 1994, but when it was delayed to 1995 instead, Gaylord sued to void the agreement. However, the New World/Fox affiliation deal in 1994 shifted network affiliations in many markets. When The WB launched in January 1995, Milwaukee became the second-largest market in the country without an affiliate. On July 24, 1995, Gaylord sold WOKY to Glencairn Ltd. Glencairn had tried to buy WOKY a year earlier, but the sale had fallen through.

Affiliation with The WB
WOKY continued to be an independent station until March 1997, when The WB was pushing for more national distribution beyond the Tribune Company's broadcast stations. WOKY finally picked up the WB affiliation in March 1997 and changed its on-air branding to "WB 18". With The WB's drive to have stations in other markets take the network and pushing market exclusivity for those stations, Glencairm made the decision to begin winding down carriage agreements with providers outside of the Milwaukee and Green Bay markets, ending WOKY's status as a regional superstation.

WOKY finally was sold to Sinclair by Glencairm in 2000, after a long legal battle between Sinclair and Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow/PUSH coalition about the racial issues of one concern holding two broadcast licenses in a market. Jackson argued that Glencairn ownership was making an end-around by passing itself off as a minority-owned company (its president, Edwin Edwards, was black) when it was really an arm of Sinclair, and used the LMA to gain control of the station. By this point however, the FCC had overturned regulations that had disallowed television duopolies, and the sale to Sinclair went through despite these objections.

Switch to The CW
Following Time Warner and CBS Corporation's January 24, 2006 announcement of The WB and UPN's shutdown and the launch of the jointly owned CW Television Network, Sinclair announced on May 2, 2006 that WOKY would become The CW's Milwaukee affiliate upon the network's September 18 launch. WOKY continued to identify as "WB 18" during the summer months, officially switching to the new "CW 18" branding on September 18, though the station's logo bug was changed the week before to the "CW18" logo while promoting the network's pending launch.

On June 28, 2007, Time Warner Cable began carrying WOKY's high definition digital signal on its southeastern Wisconsin systems on digital channel 1018,Charter Communications, the other major cable provider in the area, reached a compensation agreement in April 2007, but the HD signal was not added until June 9, 2009, when the station began to air on digital channel 618 throughout Charter's southeastern Wisconsin systems. Despite its long broadcasting history, WOKY has been one of The CW's weaker affiliates in terms of viewership.

2010 Flooding & Studio Move
On July 22, 2010, the Milwaukee area experienced a major flash flooding event which caused major damage in several parts of Milwaukee County. The studios of WOKY were then located a half-mile south of Lincoln Creek and the building and technical equipment belonging to the stations suffered major damage, forcing channel 18 off the air for the majority of the time after 6 p.m. on July 22 until the early morning of July 24;once WOKY returned to the air, their programming fed into theirmaster control facilities via another unknown Sinclair master control. This resulted in most of the station's paid programming and other timeslots where the Sinclair facility did not have an episode of a particular series within the schedule replaced with reruns of Coach and advertisements were replaced with direct response national advertising. WOKY eventually resumed local operations later during the week of July 25, but broadcast in 480i standard definition and did not display digital on-screen bugs at all due to damage to the station's high definition broadcasting equipment for most of the following month. HD programming was restored on August 20, 2010.

Sinclair decided to put WOKY up for sell, and Island Television made the purchase. After the purchase, Island Television began construction on a new studio for WOKY, which was completed in 2013.