KWQC-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 6, at 11:59 p.m. on June 12, 2009, the official date when full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station shut off its pre-transition digital signal on channel 56 just after midnight on June 11–12. The station returned to the air on channel 36 around 1:00 a.m. on Friday, June 12. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 6. Most of the station's programming on the broadcast day of June 12, 2009, was actually broadcast both on analog channel 6 and the new digital channel 36, until 11:59 p.m. when KWQC used analog channel 6 to provide a Nightlight service to those remaining analog-only television viewers without a digital TV set or digital converter box for the two weeks following the digital transition.