Some Spanish language networks like Telemundo and Univision may only have one station within an entire state that serves the largest city in their market and is distributed statewide via cable; one such case is Telemundo affiliate WYTU-LD (channel 63) in Milwaukee, which maintains cable distribution throughout Wisconsin via Charter Spectrum, along with extended coverage on low-power stations in Rockford, Illinois, and South Bend, Indiana, providing it broad coverage resembling a regional superstation though not marketing itself as such.
Except for areas that were far enough out of a signal's reach to make this an unviable option, these systems selected major-market independent stations (often located anywhere between 60 and 200 miles [97 and 322 km] away from the relay towers) that aired popular feature films and local sports events.
[8][9] With a more cost-effective and expeditious distribution method in place than would be capable through setting up microwave and coaxial telephone relay systems across the entire country, Turner got his idea off the ground by founding Southern Satellite Systems (SSS) – a common carrier uplink provider based in Tulsa, Oklahoma – to serve as the station's satellite redistributor, and subsequently purchased an earth-to-satellite transmitting station to be set up outside of WTCG's Peachtree Street studios in Atlanta.
To get around FCC rules in effect at the time that prohibited a common carrier from having involvement in program origination, Turner decided to sell SSS to former Western Union vice president of marketing Edward L. Taylor for $1 and sold the transmitting station to RCA American Communications.
Soon after it was uplinked, an increasing number of cable television systems throughout the United States sought to carry WTCG as part of their channel lineups, ultimately making it the most widely distributed superstation for the rest of its existence under the format.
)[17][18] Despite a programming inventory comparable to other independents (including holding rights to San Francisco Giants baseball games), SCS was unsuccessful in marketing KTVU to cable systems to reach the level of WTBS, WGN-TV and WOR-TV.
(KWGN's satellite feed was limited in its availability to home dish users; although, at its peak, the station itself had cable carriage throughout Colorado's Western Slope, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
[25] During the 1960s, the FCC began to severely restrict the importation of distant signals by larger CATV and cable systems, limiting their distribution to smaller-market and rural systems, based in part on the framework of the 1963 Carter Mountain Transmission Corp. v. FCC case, which stemmed from a legal challenge by Chief Washakie TV, then-owner of KWRB-TV (channel 10, now KFNE and operating a satellite station of Casper Fox affiliate KLWY) in Riverton, Wyoming, against the FCC license of Cody-based microwave relay firm Carter Mountain Transmission Corp., which intended to relay the signal of CBS/NBC affiliate KTWO-TV (channel 2) in Casper, Wyoming to CATV systems in three cities that were within the range of KWRB's off-air signal: Riverton, Lander and Thermopolis.
[27][28][29][30] Further expansion of "proto-superstation" signals came through federal court rulings on separate lawsuits filed in July 1961 by United Artists and WSTV Inc. (then-owner of WSTV [channel 9, now WTOV-TV] in Steubenville, Ohio) over Fortnightly Corp.'s importation of television stations from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Wheeling, West Virginia–Steubenville, Ohio markets to its Fairmont and Clarksburg, West Virginia systems and in December 1964 by CBS (over TelePrompTer's importation of stations from New York City, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Billings, Montana and Denver, Colorado to its systems in Elmira, New York, Johnstown, Pennsylvania and Farmington, New Mexico).
)[42][43] On October 25, 1978, the FCC implemented an "open entry" policy for satellite resale carriers wanting to feed local television stations to cable systems, a move that would pave the way for the emergence of additional superstations.
The law also closed the terrestrial loophole that allowed superstations like WGN and WTBS to continue paying local single market rates for programming acquisitions even as they were gaining national coverage, whilst selling that extended coverage to advertisers; this change made it so that other local stations which had their signals beamed to a satellite transponder – whether willingly or not – were charged appropriately for program content based on their actual national distribution, depending on arrangements with any given syndicator.
[65][66][67][68][69] A major concern brought about by the new rules was that it would force cable systems to drop certain superstations altogether, rather than shoulder expenses that would be incurred with the resultant blackouts and any responsibilities for acquiring substitute programming, thereby denying viewers access to sporting events popular among subscribers who received those signals.
In preparation for the policy's implementation – which took effect on January 1, 1990, after FCC-enforced delays in the regulation's rollout – some superstations decided to indemnify cable systems from potential blackouts by ensuring that, at least, some programs that could be subjected to local syndication exclusivity claims could continue to be shown to their national audience, so as to prevent the loss of sports access.
(For example, amid public pressure from the Providence City Council and Rhode Island Department of Public Utilities and Carriers, Dimension Cable Services's Providence, Rhode Island system [now operated by Cox Communications], which removed the 24-hour WPIX feed upon the Syndex rollout, began placing the station's Yankees telecasts on a local origination channel in May 1990, in exchange for paying United Video full-time copyright fees.
An FCC inquiry on whether SyndEx rules should be applied to home dish services concluded in January 1991 that extending those rules to satellite "would be technically and economically infeasible" as equipment that would allow programs to be selectively blacked out based on the media market would not likely be marketed until after the initial compulsory license expired in 1994 and that the expense of "preventing viewing by a relatively few authorized home satellite dish owners for a relatively short period" would be greater than that incurred by cable providers.
On November 2, 2000, the FCC approved identical network non-duplication, syndication exclusivity and sports blackout rules applying to the six FCC-designated national superstations (WGN-TV, KTLA, WPIX, KWGN-TV, WSBK-TV and WWOR-TV) and, in the case of the sports blackouts, other distant signals retransmitted over home dish units to an extent where it would be "technically feasible and not economically prohibitive;" this statute would eventually limit distribution of the five grandfathered stations to rural areas without distributors of similar programming.
[86] Much of the appeal of superstations to viewers came from the national carriage of sporting events involving professional league teams that contracted their telecasts to the originating stations within home markets.
[87] The only federal restrictions applying to sports events shown on superstations and other imported signals was the so-called "same-game rule," enacted by the FCC in June 1975 to prohibit cable systems from retransmitting a sports event through a distant signal within a 35 miles (56 km) zone around the city of the home team's arena if the game is not airing on a local television broadcaster, with a subsequent amendment requiring the broadcast rights-holder to inform local cable systems of game deletions no later than Monday of the preceding calendar week of the proposed deletion.
[91][92][93] Outside of the teams that benefited from the broader exposure the telecasts gave them, Major League Baseball had long felt that superstations ate into their ability to gain revenue from agreements with national networks like ESPN.
The tax was implemented in January 1985, under successor Peter Ueberroth, with Ted Turner becoming the first MLB team owner to agree to the revenue-sharing plan, under which he made annual contributions to the league's Central Fund for the continued right to carry Braves baseball games over WTBS.
U.S. District Judge Suzanne B. Conlon issued a preliminary injunction in favor of Tribune and the Cubs on July 23, 1992, six weeks prior to an 18-9-1 motion of no confidence against Vincent among team owners on September 4.
[111][112][113][114][115] Impacts to baseball's attempts to curb superstation telecasts were felt following Vincent's subsequent resignation as MLB Commissioner on September 7, 1992; one week after his departure, the proposed blackout amendment failed to make a Cable Television Act reconciliation bill due to the lack of support for the provision in the Senate.
(The NBA contended the restriction was exempt from antitrust law under a provision of the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which was deemed in later rulings to only be applicable to the sale or transfer a national game package to a television network and not those involving individual teams.
The downside of the Paramount decision was that, from January 1995 until over-the-air digital multicasting became viable in the first half of the 2000s, it left most or all UPN programming unavailable in some mid-sized and most smaller markets where the network was not able, at least initially, to gain even secondary affiliate clearances.
The channel also chose not to carry newscasts and Chicago-originated lifestyle and entertainment programs that WGN-TV added to its schedule as the station began to better emphasize news and other locally produced content starting in 2008.
Following the Tribune Company's emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid a debt-laden 2007 leveraged buyout by real estate investor Sam Zell and subsequent takeover by three private equity firms (Oaktree Capital Management, JPMorgan Chase and Angelo, Gordon & Co.), Tribune unveiled plans to turn WGN America into a conventional basic cable network incorporating original programming content, to increase the channel's visibility and stave off potential defections from television providers because of the expense of paying increasing copyright fees to transmit programs now readily available elsewhere.
[160][161] WGN-TV would eventually be made available throughout the United States once again in the spring of 2015, when antenna manufacturer Channel Master included the Chicago-area feed among the initial offerings on its short-lived over-the-top streaming service LinearTV.
[166][167] On April 4, 1985, the CRTC granted authorization for WTBS, WGN-TV, WPIX and WOR-TV to be distributed to cable providers within Canada under Section "B" of the Part II eligible services list.
The signals of WSIX, KIIS and WLTW returned to the now-merged Sirius XM lineup in June 2011, along with two new additions, CHR station WHTZ (100.3 FM) in New York City and urban contemporary outlet WGCI-FM (107.5) in Chicago.
KDIS (1110 AM, now KWVE) in Pasadena, California (serving the Los Angeles market) converted to superstation status in 2014, a byproduct of Radio Disney – for which it serves as the children's radio network's flagship outlet, and became its only analog terrestrial broadcaster as a result – refocusing its efforts primarily on mobile distribution after drawing down its remaining affiliates through both the sales or shutdowns of its owned-and-operated stations and the format conversions of terrestrial affiliates not owned by The Walt Disney Company.