Superstation

===WTCG: The first national superstation===
In December 1975, Ted Turner announced plans to redistribute Atlanta's WTCG via satellite to cable and [[C band (IEEE)|C-band satellite]] services throughout the United States, beyond the 460,000 households in middle and southern Georgia and surrounding Deep South states that had been receiving its signal via microwave since the early 1970s. (Jack Matranga, then the president of [[KTXL]] [channel 40, now a Fox affiliate] also unveiled similar plans for his [[Sacramento, California]] independent, which were never formulated to fruition.) Turner conceptualized the idea upon hearing of [[pay television|premium cable service]] Home Box Office ([[HBO]])'s groundbreaking innovation to retransmit its programming nationwide using [[communications satellite]]s beginning with its September 30, 1975, telecast of the "[[Thrilla in Manila]]" boxing match.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Broadcasters eye satellite feed to distant cables|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications, Inc.|page=47|date=December 1, 1975}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Communications History – Home Box Office|url=http://www.fcc.gov/omd/history/tv/1960-1989.html|author=FCC Internet Services Staff|publisher=Federal Communications Commission|access-date=October 5, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070202210308/http://www.fcc.gov/omd/history/tv/1960-1989.html|archive-date=February 2, 2007}}</ref> 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 [[Satellite Syndicated Systems|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 [[SES Americom|RCA American Communications]]. Upon the sale's consummation in March 1976, Turner reached an agreement with Taylor to have the firm uplink the WTCG signal to the [[Satcom (satellite)|Satcom 1]] satellite.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Turner cranks up for satellite feed|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications, Inc.|page=118|date=March 22, 1976}}</ref><ref name="wapo-turner">{{cite news|title=Super Station's Super Man|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1979/02/11/super-stations-super-man/416b0082-6659-45ad-a1af-5bc77e84895e/|author=Christian Williams|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|date=February 11, 1979|access-date=April 29, 2019}}</ref>

WTCG became America's first nationally distributed superstation on December 17, 1976, when its signal began to be relayed to four cable systems in the [[Midwestern United States|Midwestern]] and Southeastern United States. At 1:00&nbsp;pm. ET (12:00&nbsp;pm. CT) that day, subscribers of Multi-Vue TV in [[Grand Island, Nebraska]], Hampton Roads Cablevision in [[Newport News, Virginia]], Troy Cablevision in [[Troy, Alabama]] and Newton Cable TV in [[Newton, Kansas]] began receiving WTCG's presentation of the 1948 [[Dana Andrews]]-[[Cesar Romero]] film ''[[Deep Waters (1948 film)|Deep Waters]]'' (which had started on the Atlanta broadcast signal 30 minutes prior).<ref name="b&c-wtcgnational">{{cite magazine|title=Atlanta TV goes national via satellite|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications, Inc.|pages=24–25|date=December 20, 1976}}</ref> Southern Satellite Systems initially charged prospective cable systems 10¢ per subscriber to transmit WTCG full-time and 2¢ per subscriber to carry it as an intermediary, post-sign-off timeshare service (from as early as midnight to as late as 6:00&nbsp;a.m. local time).<ref name="b&c-wtcgnational"/> One key legal point in Turner's contracts with programming distributors and advertisers was that they continued to charge him for programming content and commercial time as if his station were reaching only a local market. No one had thought of adding contract language to deal with satellite-delivered broadcasts of a television station to a much larger region. Turner Communications Group also chose to revise its advertising rates to better reflect WTCG's national cable audience in October 1978.<ref name="b&c-breakthrough">{{cite magazine|title=Superstation breakthrough|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications, Inc.|pages=25–26|date=October 30, 1978}}</ref>

Also setting WTCG apart from other superstations that would soon follow in its footsteps was that it directly promoted its programming to its national audience, made investments in programming production as well as acquisitions, and charged separate advertising rates at the national and local levels. Given Turner's deep pockets, the station paid for syndicated programming at (albeit reasonably cheaper) rates comparable to other national networks, rather than merely receiving [[royalty payment]]s from cable systems for programs to which it held the copyright. Cable systems found WTCG—one of the few American television stations offering a 24-hour-a-day programming schedule at the time—an attractive offering as it had an extensive film library heavily reliant on classic feature films (amounting to 30 movies per week out of the 2,700 titles that Turner had accrued since taking over the station), high-profile syndicated programs and games from various Atlanta-area sports teams (including the [[Atlanta Braves]] Major League Baseball club, the [[Atlanta Hawks]] of the [[National Basketball Association|NBA]] - both of which were owned by Turner - and the [[Atlanta Flames]] of the [[National Hockey League|NHL]]). 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. By May 1978, WTCG was being received by 1.5&nbsp;million households in 45 states, with figures suggesting that its reach had been increasing at the rate of 100,000 cable households per month; by the end of that year, the station was available through cable systems in all 50 states. By July 1979, the station (by then, known as WTBS) was available to 4.8&nbsp;million cable subscribers plus an additional 556,000 households that received the station through other distribution methods (including microwave and [[Multichannel multipoint distribution service|MMDS]] services).<ref name="wapo-turner"/> 

As WTBS, the station also served to help promote Turner's subsequent cable efforts, providing simulcasts of Cable News Network ([[CNN]]) and CNN2 (later Headline News and now [[HLN (TV network)|HLN]]) upon their launches in June 1980 and January 1982, respectively, as well as offering weekend-long marathons promoting the 1992 launch of [[Cartoon Network]]. (CNN also produced the station's only conventional, long-form news effort as a superstation, the ''TBS Evening News'', a prime time newscast that ran from July 1980 to July 1984.) Aside from Turner's use of WTBS to help launch his other cable ventures, Southern Satellite Systems also distributed the [[United Press International]] (UPI) teletext news service (from 1978 to 1981) and the [[Electra (teletext)|Electra]] teletext service (from 1981 to 1993) to the [[vertical blanking interval]] (VBI) of the WTBS feed. WTBS remained the most widely distributed superstation for the rest of its existence under the format; by 1987, WTBS was available to 41.6&nbsp;million cable and satellite subscriber households nationwide. A separate feed of WTBS intended for distribution to cable providers outside the Atlanta market, incorporating national advertising substituting commercials intended for its Atlanta viewing audience, was launched in 1981. (Since the original incarnation of the syndication exclusivity rules had been repealed by that time, program substitutions on the national feed were very limited.)