On October 26, 2015, WKTV announced that it would change WKTV-DT2's affiliation from The CW to CBS on November 22 (rebranding the subchannel as CBS Utica). The new affiliation marks the first time CBS has had an affiliate in Utica since the end of WKTV's secondary affiliation with the network in the mid-1950s, as well as the first time CBS has ever had a full-time affiliate in Utica. (Prior to this, WTVH in Syracuse and WBNG in Binghamton served as the default CBS affiliates via cable for the Utica market; WTVH was able to be picked up over-the-air in portions of the Utica market before it shut down its analog signal.) Within a month of the subchannel's launch, WKTV-DT2 had replaced WTVH on Time Warner Cable channel 5 in Utica proper, while DirecTV later added WKTV-DT2 to its local packages, as did Dish Network shortly after the new year. On July 1, 2016, WKTV-DT2 was re-launched in the rest of the Utica DMA when the station replaced WTVH in Herkimer County and WBNG in Otsego County. However, as a result of viewer complaints in Otsego County, WBNG was restored to Time Warner Cable systems in that area (alongside WKTV-DT2) on January 25, 2017.