In October 2006, WBKI was dropped from any Bowling Green-market cable system that carried it to give WBKO-DT3 cable exclusivity as a CW affiliate. Meanwhile, WBKI was also dropped from Lexington-area cable systems to make way for former UPN affiliate WKYT-DT2 (a digital subchannel of CBS affiliate WKYT-TV, a sister station to WBKO) after that subchannel joined The CW at the time of that network's inception. WBKI's analog signal could still be picked up over-the-air in select areas of the market with an outdoor antenna until the 2009 digital television transition. WBKI-TV's principal signal was taken off the air in 2017 as a result of the 2016–17 FCC spectrum incentive auction, four years after that station began to share the channel space with a Salem, Indiana-licensed station that now uses the WBKI callsign.