“A power outage has caused problems for our signal,” Lexington CBS-affiliate WKYT announced on its Facebook page Wednesday night in the midst of broadcasting a University of Kentucky basketball game. “The problem should be resolved as soon as possible.”

It turns out that the power outage, which knocked the station off the air for around 10 minutes, was caused by an animal gnawing through a power line on the station’s property.

Mike Kanarek, WKYT’s vice president of operations, told the Lexington Herald-Leader that the station switched to a back-up generator almost immediately after the animal cut off electricity but it took a few minutes for the transmitter to resume broadcasting.

Kanarek didn’t specify what type of animal caused the disturbance.

Conan O’Brien poked fun at content-sharing in local news this week, showing a clip on his show of several anchors repeating the same phrase — “push the envelope” — while reporting on the late night host’s plans to officiate a same-sex wedding on his show.

The original source of the copy was CBS Newspath, according to staffers at two stations featured in the clip. Although “Conan” only showed 18 stations, a search of TVEyes.com reveals that 27 stations reported the story using identical wording (a full list, including markets and affiliations, is after the jump.)

The script was tease copy for Monday’s “Eye on Entertainment” package, filed by CBS Newspath correspondent Sandra Hughes. The full version reads: “Conan O’Brien may be about to push the envelope on late night television. And British songstress Adele seems to have pushed her voice too far. CBS’ Sandra Hughes has those stories and more, in your Monday morning ‘Eye on Entertainment.’”

South Bend’s WSBT, which was featured in the Conan clip, addressed the situation on the 6 a.m. newscast this morning, calling it the “dark secret” of the news business. Read more

Following the departure of sports anchor Brandon Fisher, Lexington CBS-affiliate WKYT is changing up the responsibilities of the sports team.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, Fisher has left the station after three years to accept a job in pharmaceutical sales. Longtime WKYT sports anchor Rob Bromley (pictured), who was seen on the 11 p.m. newscast before Fisher joined the station, will return to the evenings. He will be the sports anchor on the 5, 5:30, 6 and 11 p.m newscasts.

“I wanted to streamline the anchor teams,” WKYT news director Robert Thomas told the Herald-Leader. “We have an anchor team at 5, 5:30 and 6 that does really well, and I wanted the exact same team doing the 11.” Read more

WKYT will become the first station in the Lexington, KY market to have a 10 a.m. newscast beginning September 12.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that station management at WKYT, which is the market’s CBS affiliate, has been planning the additional newscast for two years, since Oprah Winfrey announced she would depart from daytime television. Several stations have chosen to fill the Oprah timeslot with news, but WKYT — which will replace the daytime queen with Anderson Cooper‘s syndicated show this fall — wanted another timeslot for an additional newscast.

“We do very well at noon, and we’ve constantly improved in show growth in the mornings, so we’re wanting to bridge those time periods,” news director Robert Thomas told the Herald-Leder.

The new show will be staffed by the midday news team: anchors Bill Bryant and Barbara Bailey and meteorologist Todd Borek. The station will slide “Regis & Kelly” from the 10 a.m. hour to the 9 a.m. hour to accommodate the half-hour newscast.

Smith Media-owned stations in Utica, NY and Burlington, VT returned to Time Warner Cable systems over the weekend as the companies reached an agreement on a new retransmission contract.

Smith Media had pulled its northeastern stations–Fox-affiliate WFFF and ABC-affiliate WVNY in Burlington-Plattsburgh and NBC-affiliate WKTV in Utica–from TWC on December 15.  Smith Media and TWC finally concluded their negotiations on Saturday evening.

Vic Vetters, Smith Media vice president and group manager, was happy to put the negotiations in the past. WKTV, and the other stations, he said, “can now focus singularly on what we do best.”

During the blackout, several local lawmakers put pressure on the FCC to try and speed up the negotiations. State Senator Joseph A. Griffo; Utica Mayor David R. Roefaro; Assemblywoman RoAnn M. Destito; and Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente, Jr. wrote a letter to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, emphasizing their concern that the blackout limited local news.

While Smith Media stations were off of its cables systems, TWC imported Utica ABC-affiliate WUTR and Watertown, NY Fox-affiliate WNYF to Burlington and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton NBC-affiliate WBRE to Utica.