Superstation

===WGN, WOR and other emerging superstations===
Turner's innovation signaled the development of basic cable programming in the United States and, within three years of WTCG achieving national status, was soon copied by other common carrier firms who decided to apply for satellite uplinks to distribute other independent stations as national superstations; however, while Turner had aggressively pursued national availability for WTCG, the other superstations that would soon emerge did not purposely seek such widespread reach and were either recalcitrant about having their signals imported without consent or ignored the issue directly and allowed their newfound expanded distribution to continue unfettered.

On November 9, 1978, Chicago independent WGN-TV became America's second national superstation, when Tulsa, Oklahoma-based common carrier firm [[Gemstar–TV Guide International|United Video Satellite Group, Inc.]] – one of four applicants, along with Southern Satellite Systems, [[Lansing, Michigan]]-based American Microwave & Communications and [[Milwaukee]]-based Midwestern Relay Company, that the FCC granted approval to operate satellite transponders to relay the signal following the institution of the FCC's distant signal "open entry" policy for carrier firms – uplinked its signal onto a Satcom-3 transponder for redistribution to cable and satellite subscribers. United Video stepped in to assert uplink responsibilities as SSS had become embroiled in a transponder lease dispute with RCA American Communications in pertinence to a lawsuit involving RCA American and SSS's Satellite Communication Systems joint venture over the use of Satcom Transponder 18.<ref name="b&c-nextsuperstations">{{cite magazine|title=WGN-TV, KTVU may be the next super stations|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications, Inc.|page=30|date=October 9, 1978}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|title=SSS tangles with RCA over transponder for WGN-TV|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications, Inc.|page=30|date=November 6, 1978}}</ref> While TBS partnered with a satellite carrier to relay the WTBS Atlanta signal to a national audience, United Video used the legally structured loophole in the Copyright Act's compulsory license statute to uplink the signal of WGN without the prior consent of owner WGN Continental Broadcasting Company (later known as [[Tribune Broadcasting]]), a model that would be used for other superstations that emerged in the coming years. United Video did not compensate WGN directly for the retransmission of its signal, though the station and its parent company received [[royalty payment]]s from cable systems that received the United Video-fed signal for any copyrighted programming (local newscasts, public affairs shows, locally originated children's programs and sports) that WGN owned and/or produced.

The station quickly turned into a major commodity among cable systems because of WGN's telecasts of [[Chicago Cubs]] and [[Chicago White Sox]] baseball, [[DePaul Blue Demons]] college basketball, and [[Chicago Bulls]] basketball games and its locally popular in-house children's programs like ''[[The Bozo Show]]'' (the Chicago iteration of the [[Bozo the Clown]] television franchise). As the first superstation that offered long-form newscasts (compared to the newsbriefs offered by WTCG/WTBS for most of the time until 1996 as well as an abbreviated daily satirical newscast, ''17 Update Early in the Morning'', which aired from 1976 to 1979 and mixed improvisational and scripted comedy with actual news content), upon moving its late evening newscast to 9:00&nbsp;p.m. [[Central Time Zone|Central Time]] in March 1980, it also provided a prime time news alternative for viewers wanting to find out national and international headlines without having to wait for post-prime-time newscasts on local network stations, something of particular benefit to [[Snowbird (person)|snowbirds]] and other Chicago residents who temporarily or permanently relocated elsewhere in the United States. Immediately after achieving superstation status, WGN-TV became available to an estimated approximately 200 cable systems and 1.5&nbsp;million subscribers throughout the country;<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Cable Briefs: Ready customers|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications, Inc.|page=76|date=December 18, 1978}}</ref> its distribution was heavily concentrated in the [[Central United States|Central U.S.]] until the early 1980s and, by the end of the decade, had gradually expanded to encompass most of the nation with some gaps in the [[Northeastern United States|Northeastern U.S.]] that remained into the early 2010s. In 1985, Tribune—which would assume satellite distribution rights for the WGN national feed through its April 2001 purchase of the portion of United's UVTV unit that handled the feed's uplink and marketing responsibilities—began providing a direct microwave link of the WGN Chicago signal to United Video, providing it a second signal source in the event technical problems arose with the intercepted satellite signal and vice versa. WGN would become the only superstation to come close to reaching parity with WTBS, although it would continue to lag somewhat in coverage partly due to the two-year headstart of WTBS into the cable market.

[[KTVU]] (channel 2) in [[Oakland, California|Oakland]]–San Francisco followed behind on December 16, 1978, when Satellite Communications Systems uplinked the station onto a Satcom-1 transponder. (Holiday Inns Inc. would withdraw from the Southern Satellite Systems partnership by April 1979, leaving the latter to handle uplink and promotional responsibilities for KTVU.)<ref name="b&c-upintheair">{{cite magazine|title=Up in the air in more ways than one|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications Inc.|page=60|date=December 18, 1978}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|title=Holiday network|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications Inc.|page=7|date=April 16, 1979}}</ref> 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. In April 1980, [[Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment]] purchased the transponder space from SCS to distribute upstart music video channel [[MTV]]; KTVU's national cable distribution would be reduced to systems that already carried the station in the Western United States by early 1981.

Eastern Microwave was somewhat more successful in distributing WOR-TV (which had been available to cable and CATV systems via microwave throughout much of the Northeastern United States since 1965), when it began retransmitting the New York station's signal to cable affiliates and C-band satellite receivers throughout the remainder of the country over transponder 17 of Satcom I in April 1979. Until WOR adopted a 24-hour schedule in 1980, the satellite feed initially included a backup feed of CBS-owned New York City station [[WCBS-TV]] (channel 2) during WOR's off-hours. Even though WOR had a similar film library as other superstations (further boosted by the acquisition of the [[Universal Pictures]] film library when [[MCA Inc.]] acquired the station in a $387-million deal with the legally embattled [[RKO General]] in April 1987) and held rights to events from several New York-area professional sports teams (including the [[New York Mets]], the [[New York Rangers]], the [[New Jersey Devils]] and the [[New York Knicks]] as well as college basketball games involving [[Big East Conference]] universities), the station's distribution—while broad—was still relatively regionally scattered and paced far behind that of WTBS and WGN well into the 1990s.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=In Sync: Superstations|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications Inc.|page=110|date=March 25, 1979}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=A Channel Innovates and Moves Up|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/16/arts/a-channel-innovates-and-moves-up.html|author=Jeremy Gerard|newspaper=The New York Times|date=September 16, 1989|access-date=April 29, 2019}}</ref>

United Video would eventually gain an oligopoly in superstation distribution throughout the 1980s, building on its success with WGN-TV by commencing distribution of three other superstations and handling marketing responsibilities for one more (including three that were owned by then-WGN parent Tribune Broadcasting). On May 1, 1984, United Video—which picked up the station's satellite retransmission rights from Southern Satellite Systems—uplinked the signal of WPIX to the [[Westar|Westar V]] satellite;<ref>{{cite news|title=WPIX to Join 'Superstations'|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/04/arts/wpix-to-join-superstations.html|author=Steve Knoll|newspaper=The New York Times|date=March 4, 1984|access-date=April 29, 2019}}</ref> this was followed on July 1, 1984, with its uplink of the signal of KTVT in Dallas–Fort Worth to the Satcom IV satellite, in a move undertaken by then-owner Gaylord Broadcasting to persuade cable providers that either already imported or were considering receiving the station's signal by microwave to begin transmitting the KTVT satellite feed. (United Video would later relocate KTVT's transponder to the [[Spacenet|Spacenet III]] in December 1988.)<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Another station aloft|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications, Inc.|page=10|date=April 30, 1984}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|title=Changing birds|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications, Inc.|page=49|date=October 24, 1988}}</ref> On October 24, 1987, Netlink—then a subsidiary of [[Tele-Communications Inc.]] (TCI)—began distributing [[KWGN-TV]] (channel 2, now a CW affiliate) over Satcom I as part of the company's "[[Denver]] 5" direct-to-home package of television stations from [[Colorado]]'s state capital that also included five default network feeds for home dish subscribers without access to a local network affiliate: NBC owned-and-operated station [[KCNC-TV]] (channel 4, now a CBS owned-and-operated station), ABC affiliate [[KUSA (TV)|KUSA-TV]] (channel 9, now an NBC affiliate), CBS affiliate [[KMGH-TV]] (channel 7, now an ABC affiliate), PBS station [[KRMA-TV]] (channel 6) and Fox affiliate [[KDVR]] (channel 31). (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 Western Slope|Colorado's Western Slope]], [[Idaho]], [[Kansas]], [[Montana]], [[Nebraska]], [[New Mexico]], [[South Dakota]], [[Utah]], [[Washington (state)|Washington]] and [[Wyoming]].)<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Cablecastings: Denver addition|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications Inc.|page=101|date=October 26, 1987}}</ref>

On February 15, 1988, Eastern Microwave Inc. began distributing WSBK-TV and KTLA (channel 5) in Los Angeles via the Satcom I-R satellite. (WSBK-TV was selected primarily for its broadcasts of [[Boston Bruins]] hockey and [[Boston Red Sox]] baseball games, while KTLA was selected for its broadcasts of [[Los Angeles Clippers]] basketball and [[Los Angeles Angels|California Angels]] baseball games.) EMI chose to encourage rather than compel cable systems in the Northeastern U.S. that already received WSBK by microwave to begin receiving the satellite feed, and outsourced marketing of the signals to home dish owners through HBO and [[Satellite Syndicated Systems|TEMPO Enterprises]]. Both superstations were notable for being the first to have their signals scrambled from the outset, using the [[Videocipher II]] encryption system as well as the second and third EMI-delivered superstations to be encrypted, after having converted the WWOR satellite signal to an encrypted format in March 1986. (Within two months of EMI making the station available via satellite, United Video assumed marketing rights for KTLA under a partnership with Eastern Microwave.) Both services had their distribution limited primarily to the home dish market, whereas their cable distribution remained confined to their respective regions ([[New England]] for WSBK and the Southwestern United States for KTLA).<ref name="b&c-twomore">{{cite magazine|title=Two more join superstation ranks|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications Inc.|page=60|date=February 15, 1988}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|title=Satellite Footprints: United they stand|periodical=Broadcasting|publisher=Broadcasting Publications Inc.|page=63|date=April 25, 1988}}</ref>

Unlike with WTCG/WTBS, Tribune Broadcasting (owners of WGN-TV, WPIX, KTLA and KWGN-TV until the completion of Tribune's purchase by [[Nexstar Media Group]] and concurring spin-off of WPIX to the [[E. W. Scripps Company]] in September 2019, with both successor parents inheriting the classification for those stations) and the various owners of WSBK ([[George N. Gillett Jr.|Gillett Communications]], [[Paramount Stations Group]] and [[CBS Television Stations]]) have treated their satellite-delivered stations as "passive" superstations, opting to assert a neutral position over the relay of its signal by an intermediate common carrier to a national audience and leaving national promotional duties for multichannel television services and their subscribers to the satellite carriers that retransmitted their signals; in kind, neither station received direct compensation from United Video or EMI for retransmission or promotion of their signals but received royalty payments paid by carrier cable systems to the Copyright Royalty Tribunal (CRT) for their retransmission of programs that are copyrighted in the name of the individual stations and/or their respective parent companies. This benefited the stations as it allowed them to continue paying for syndicated programming and advertising at local rates rather than those comparable to other national networks.

Even so, WGN would gradually switch to a more "active" stance in later years; Tribune began relaying the station's Chicago broadcast feed to United Video directly in 1985, and eventually acquired a majority stake in the rechristened [[TV Guide|TV Guide Inc.]]'s UVTV satellite unit in April 2001 as the company was spinning off its satellite carrier assets to focus on ''TV Guide''{{'}}s magazine, [[Pop (U.S. TV network)#History|direct-to-cable program listings]] and [[electronic program guide|interactive program guide]] services. Tribune, as a whole, had also shifted from opposing satellite retransmission of its stations sans permission to weighing in the benefits of having its stations be distributed to a wide audience, to the point of being in strong opposition against the reimposition of the syndicated exclusivity rules and filing court proceedings against major sports leagues that sought to prevent game telecasts involving local NBA and Major League Baseball teams from being imported to other media markets.<ref name="b&c-twomore"/>