Despite the loss of its full-power signal, WAZE remained on several area cable systems, as well as the Evansville DirecTV and Dish Network feeds, for over a year. Cable and satellite companies are not legally obligated to carry low-power stations. However, on January 3, 2013, the station's analog repeaters went off the air with no advance warning, leaving the Tri-State without a CW affiliate. Roberts had filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012, but did not file to renew the repeaters' licenses at the time the Evansville stations filed for renewal, meaning their licenses would have expired on August 1, 2013. In a filing with the FCC, Roberts filed a temporary request to halt operations due to the bankruptcy proceedings. However, Newkirk reported that the receiving equipment had been removed from the transmitter site, making it very unlikely that WAZE would return to the air in the foreseeable future. In any event, a prospective buyer would not only have to be approved by the bankruptcy court, but such approval would have had to have been granted before April 1 in order to give the new owner time to file for a license renewal. The repeaters would have been forced off the air in any event if they had not been converted to digital by 2015; as of late 2012, no conversion applications had been filed with the FCC.