TBS originated as a terrestrial television station in Atlanta, Georgia that began operating on UHF channel 17 on September 1, 1967, under the WJRJ-TV call letters.

[4] Under Rice, WJRJ—the first independent station to begin operation in the Atlanta market since WQXI-TV (channel 36, allocation now occupied by MyNetworkTV affiliate WATL) ceased operations on May 31, 1955—operated on a shoestring budget, general entertainment format with a schedule consisting of a few off-network reruns (such as Father Knows Best, The Danny Thomas Show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and The Rifleman) and older feature films as well as a 15-minute news program.

[5][6][7] In July 1969, Rice Broadcasting reached an agreement to merge with the Turner Communications Corporation—an Atlanta-based group owned by entrepreneur Robert E. "Ted" Turner III, who ran his late father's billboard advertising business and had also expanded his interests to include radio stations in Chattanooga, Tennessee (WGOW), Charleston, South Carolina (WTMA-AM-FM, the FM station is now WSSX-FM), and Jacksonville, Florida (WMBR, now WQOP)—in an all-stock transaction.

WTCG started to reach far beyond the Atlanta television market in the early 1970s to serve such areas lacking an independent station, as many cable television systems in middle and southern Georgia and surrounding areas of the Southeastern United States—particularly Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina—began picking up the UHF signal off-air and retransmitted the Atlanta studio/transmitter link feed to microwave relay towers (sometimes several times) back to their headends.

[14] Turner began formulating plans to take WTCG national upon hearing of the groundbreaking innovation by premium cable service Home Box Office (HBO) (which would eventually become a sister property to channel 17 as a result of Time Warner's 1996 acquisition of the Turner Broadcasting System) to retransmit its programming nationwide utilizing communications satellites beginning with its September 30, 1975, telecast of the "Thrilla in Manila" boxing match.

[15] 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.

In order 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.

[33][34][35][36] Concurrently, Turner began branding the station as "SuperStation WTBS"—the prefix word was re-rendered in mixed case in October 1980, with both "S"s capitalized—with occasional references within the logo to the channel 17 frequency in Atlanta.

[37][38][39] John Young, an Atlanta-area radio DJ at WZGC, became the voice of SuperStation WTBS during this time and would go on to provide promotional voiceover services for other local and national clients as a direct result of his work for the channel.

Although, separate national advertising or per inquiry ads replaced the local commercials intended for broadcast in the Atlanta area—which became exclusively carried by channel 17 locally—on the superstation feed.

The 1980s also saw WTBS begin to venture into original programming, in 1980, the station premiered Tush, a late night sketch comedy and variety series hosted and developed by comedian Bill Tush (who had hosted newsbriefs and, occasionally, movie presentations for WTBS, in addition to serving as a staff announcer), with Jan Hooks (who would later gain fame during her stint as a cast member on Saturday Night Live) among its repertory cast.

Combined with the utilization of indemnification provisions designed to protect against monetary damages if a superstation has "a reasonable basis for concluding that[...] programing deletion is not required," this ensured that the TBS national feed would be absolved from potential blackouts necessitated by any local syndication exclusivity claims and, therefore, prevent defections by cable affiliates that indicated it would remove any distant signals rather than shoulder the expense of blacking out or substituting non-compliant programs.

Title sequences for movies and special presentations—which were accompanied by music incorporating variants of the "TBYes" promotional theme's signature—showed people in a main street setting flocking to a TBS-branded theater, which transitions to a panning shot stopping at a couch in the front row of the theater's seating area where either a family or a couple (depending on the daypart presentation, as identified at the end of the sequence) sit down in time for the start of the film.

[56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64] The merger received regulatory approval on September 12, 1996; the Turner–Time Warner deal was finalized one month later on October 10, forming what at the time was the largest media company in the world.

[65][66][67] In September 1996, TBS replaced religious programs and infomercials that had aired on Sunday mornings and late nights with animated series and feature films, respectively, in those time slots.

In exchange, TBS began to lease two minutes of advertising time per hour to multichannel subscription television providers to allow them to locally insert commercials catering to viewers in the provider's service area; as a result, the channel began to broadcast fewer Atlanta Braves regular season games to a national audience, under amended contractual agreements between Turner and Major League Baseball in conjunction with the league's cable-originated rightsholders, ESPN and Fox Sports Net/Liberty Sports, to allow TBS to continue carrying Braves telecasts nationwide.

The rebranded channel 17 would offer sitcoms and movies geared specifically toward the station's Atlanta audience, and would also broadcast 45 Braves baseball games starting with the team's 2008 season.

Following the change, Canadian subscription television providers were legally required to continue carrying the local Peachtree TV signal, instead of switching to the national TBS feed.

In 2011, TBS also obtained a portion of the television rights to the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship—which it shares with Turner-owned sister channels TNT and TruTV, along with the tournament's longtime over-the-air broadcaster, CBS.

[112] On April 26, it was reported that WBD had suspended original scripted series development at TBS and TNT in order to evaluate the channels' strategies moving forward.

This scheduling caused issue with local newspaper listing supplements, which mainly blended TBS shows into each half hour logline with an additional (:05) or (:35) disclaimer.

Nevertheless, TBS—during its existence as a superstation—produced a 20-minute-long satirical newscast, 17 Update Early in the Morning, from 1976 to 1979; hosted by Bill Tush and Tina Seldin, the program was taped at the end of the workday and aired between movies around 3:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

17 Update Early in the Morning was cancelled months before Ted Turner began his serious television news venture, CNN, amid a Congressional investigation concerning whether he was fulfilling FCC public service requirements.

The Headline News simulcasts as well as the TBS NewsWatch segments were eventually phased out locally and nationally in 1996 following the relaxation of the FCC's public affairs programming requirements.

On September 11, 2001, TBS (along with sister channels TNT, Court TV, Headline News and the now-defunct CNNfn and CNN/SI) carried CNN's coverage of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon.

Turner's contractual agreement with the team reversed the standard of MLB franchises designating originating stations, arranging their own regional carrier networks and handling advertising sales for their game telecasts.

Although Mid-South quickly became the highest-rated program on WTBS, Watts lost out on acquiring the two-hour Saturday timeslot occupied by the WWF, when Barnett helped broker a deal that allowed Crockett to buy the slot from McMahon and become the superstation's exclusive wrestling promotion.

In April 1985, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) granted authorization for the WTBS Atlanta feed and three other American superstations (WGN-TV, WOR-TV, and WPIX in New York City) to be distributed to multichannel television providers within Canada.

Under CRTC linkage rules first implemented in 1983 that include requirements for providers to offer U.S.-based program services in discretionary tiers tied to Canadian services, TBS and other authorized U.S. superstations typically have been received mainly through a subscription to a domestic premium service—such as First Choice (later The Movie Network and now Crave), Moviepix (later The Movie Network Encore and now Starz), Super Channel, Super Écran, Movie Central (the original user of the Superchannel name, now defunct) and Encore Avenue (also now defunct)—although, beginning in 1997, many cable and satellite providers moved TBS to a basic specialty tier under a related rule that allows for one superstation of the provider's choice to be carried on a non-premium tier.

As they are not shown on WPCH, most of TBS's flagship programs—such as Major League Baseball (both regular season and postseason games) and original series (such as Conan)—are carried on other Canadian specialty channels.