However, the analog transmitter failed during the early morning hours of March 27, 2009, due to a malfunction of the cooling system at the transmitter facilities. Because of the cost and time involved that it would have taken to repair the analog transmitter, KETK filed a Notice of Suspension of Operations with the FCC and permanently shut down its analog operations over UHF channel 56 on March 27, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 22, using PSIP to display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 56, however KETK removed on-air references to its channel position several months prior to the transition in 2008 and only brands by its call letters.