WKOI-TV signed on May 11, 1982 as an independent station airing religious programming. In 1986, it was purchased by the Trinity Broadcasting Network. As a TBN O&O, the station cleared almost all of the network's programming, only breaking away from the network once a week for local community public affairs programming. Until June 7, 2018, WKOI-TV's transmitter was located on SR 73 in Milford Township, Butler County, Ohio, near Collinsville, approximately halfway between Richmond and Cincinnati, which provided coverage to Northern Kentucky, Greater Cincinnati and the Miami Valley in Ohio, and East Central Indiana, hence its callsign WKOI-TV. Even though its transmitter was based within the Cincinnati television market, the station was officially assigned by Nielsen to the Dayton market. TBN entered into an option agreement with Ion Media Networks on November 14, 2017, which gave Ion the option to acquire the licenses of WKOI-TV and three other TBN stations that had sold their spectrum in the FCC's incentive auction; Ion exercised the option on May 24, 2018. The sale was completed on September 25, 2018.
Digital television
Digital channel
Analog-to-digital conversion
WKOI-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 43, on April 16, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 39. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 43. The station's digital signal was multiplexed, carrying TBN on 43.1, The Church Channel on 43.2, JCTV on 43.3, Enlace on 43.4 and Smile of a Child on 43.5. Later, The Church Channel became Hillsong Channel, JCTV became JUCE TV and was combined on 43.3 with Smile, and TBN Salsa was added on 43.5.
On April 14, 2017, it was reported that WKOI-TV's over-the-air spectrum had been sold in the FCC's spectrum reallocation auction, fetching just over $20 million, with the station expected to go off the air. On March 22, 2018, it was announced that WKOI-TV would share spectrum with unrelated NBC affiliate WDTN. On June 7, 2018, WKOI-TV began sharing WDTN's digital channel, with all TBN channels dropped, and Ion Television programming appearing on virtual channel 43.1. WDTN also continued to carry Ion Television on virtual channel 2.3, as it had since February 1, 2018; on June 29, 2018, when WDTN's sister station WBDT also began sharing WDTN's digital signal, virtual channel 2.3 was dropped.
