National Geographic Explorer (or simply Explorer ) is an American documentary television series that originally premiered on Nickelodeon on April 7, 1985, after having been produced as a less costly and intensive alternative to PBS 's National Geographic Specials by Pittsburgh station WQED . The first episode ("Herculaneum: Voices from the Past") was produced by WQED and featured long-time Explorer cameraman Mark Knobil, who is the few staff members with the franchise during all 24 seasons. The program is the longest-running documentary television series on cable television . Presented every Sunday from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm, the original series was three hours in length, containing five to ten short films. Although the National Geographic Society had been producing specials for television for 20 years prior to Explorer , the premiere of the series required an increase in production from 4 hours of programming a year to 156 hours. Tim Cowling and Tim Kelly were the executive producers for the series during this transition.
268-617: In its 36 years on television, Explorer has worked for five television outlets. In February 1986, Explorer moved to TBS , where it had a successful run until September 1999, when it moved to CNBC . In October 2001, the series moved to MSNBC . In June 2003, the series was relaunched on MSNBC as Ultimate Explorer , with Lisa Ling as the host. On July 8, 2004, Explorer joined the National Geographic Channel . National Geographic Explorer has earned more than 400 awards, including 52 Emmy Awards , 13 Cable ACE awards,
536-537: A Telemundo owned-and-operated station) in Dallas–Fort Worth. In December 1975, Ted Turner announced plans to redistribute Atlanta's WTCG via satellite to cable and 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
804-528: 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. On September 10, 1990, the word "Superstation" was removed from the cable channel's on-air branding and promotions, rebranding it as simply " TBS ", which had been used verbally in on-air promotions since
1072-567: A 15-minute news program. 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 ,
1340-582: A 200-mile (320 km) radius. Further changes to signal importation regulations occurred with the August 1975 passage of a policy allowing unlimited importation of distant signals either following a local " must carry " station's final daily sign-off or at 1:00 a.m. ( Eastern and Pacific Time ) and 12:00 a.m. (in all other time zones), and the December 1975 repeal of the agency's 1972 "leapfrogging" rules (which restricted cable systems from selecting
1608-465: A 200-mile (320 km) radius. This interpretation of the rules became increasingly difficult to enforce as the number of cable-originated services increased, particularly following the emergence of communications satellites as a distribution method to the cable industry beginning in 1975. FCC soon began outlining a regulatory framework that allowed cable systems to import some out-of-market signals without running into copyright liability. In August 1975,
1876-615: A 25-game limit on the number of seasonal NBA telecasts that could be licensed to superstations (sixteen fewer than the 41-game maximum under existing NBA local broadcast rules). Concerned with the potential impact that the concurring returns of the Chicago Bulls and the Atlanta Hawks to WGN and WTBS, respectively, would have on its national contracts with NBC and ESPN, in April 1990, NBA Commissioner David Stern further reduced
2144-727: A CBS owned-and-operated station) in Dallas , KTVU (now a Fox owned-and-operated station) in San Francisco and KTLA (now a CW affiliate) in Los Angeles were uplinked to satellite as well, primarily being carried on a regional basis. The expansion of WTCG into a superstation would serve as the linchpin for what would later be renamed the Turner Broadcasting System to eventually launch or acquire other cable-originated channels in subsequent years, including
2412-700: A CBS owned-and-operated station) in Fort Worth – Dallas and KHTV (channel 39, now CW owned-and-operated station KIAH ) in Houston —to be distributed to cable systems in their respective regions, as did the Christian Broadcasting Network 's Continental Broadcasting Network unit for two of its religious-secular hybrid independents, WYAH-TV (channel 27, now independent station WGNT ) in Virginia Beach and KXTX-TV (channel 39, now
2680-481: 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.) 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
2948-440: A cast member on Saturday Night Live ) among its repertory cast. Starcade , a game show that ran from 1982 to 1983 (with a further run in syndication via Turner Program Services until 1984), featured contestants competing to win their very own arcade cabinet by playing various games. Other programming efforts included The Catlins (a Dynasty -style prime time soap opera which ran for two seasons from 1983 to 1985, and
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#17327763671973216-413: A combined 435 games for an annual fee of $ 20 million or a per-game cost of $ 46,000). A succession of three MLB Commissioners—which, among the position's responsibilities, handles negotiations for all national broadcasting contracts but is prohibited under the federal compulsory license law from controlling carriage of superstation telecasts—attempted to curb the telecasts or convince superstations to pay
3484-582: 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 . 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 1 satellite. Turner's plans to turn WTCG into
3752-471: A compressed format, with content sped up to accommodate additional time slots for advertising sales. From 2004 to 2023, programming from sister network Adult Swim also appeared on TBS. Superstation Superstation (alternatively rendered as " super station " or informally as " SuperStation ") is a term in North American broadcasting that has several meanings. Commonly, a "superstation"
4020-1015: A consideration refusal on the case by the U.S. Supreme Court on December 19. 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 ). In
4288-468: A conventional basic cable channel. Although six American television stations—none of which has widespread national distribution beyond home satellite or regional cable coverage—still are designated under this classification, these stations were primarily popularized between the late 1970s and the 1990s, in large part because of their carriage of sporting events from local professional sports franchises and theatrical feature films, offerings that were common of
4556-521: A copyright if the carrier had "no direct or indirect control over the content or selection of the primary transmission or over the particular recipients of the secondary transmission," and if the carrier's transmission activities only pertained to providing "wires, cables or other communications channels for the use of others." On March 12, 1982, District Judge Neal P. McCurn ruled that EMI and other satellite carriers were liable for royalty payments to program suppliers. The United States Court of Appeals for
4824-598: A distant signal from among stations in the top-25 media markets beyond those closest to the licensed system). Furthermore, the Congressional passage of the Copyright Act of 1976 on October 1 of that year provided compulsory licenses to cable systems and "passive" satellite carriers, allowing them to retransmit any broadcast television station throughout the country, regardless of prior consent, without incurring copyright liability; this legislation also granted
5092-406: A distant signal from among television stations in the top-25 media markets to only select a station from one of the two closest markets to the licensed system. The FCC Cable Television Bureau contended the formation of superstations was unlikely due to the absence of evidence that television stations economically benefited from cable carriage. On October 1, 1976, the U.S. Congress unanimously passed
5360-478: A distinctive monotone; he would become the voice heard during Headline News' half-hourly network IDs by the mid-1980s. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, WTBS continued to acquire second-hand programming such as made-for-TV Popeye cartoons, The Brady Bunch , The Munsters , and other programs. The station acquired reruns of All in the Family and Sanford and Son in 1979, as well as Little House on
5628-554: A few cases, currently is) used by many other television and radio stations, but none of these operations is a superstation as defined by the FCC and solely use the term for marketing purposes. Similarly, the "superstation" term has also been occasionally stretched within the broadcasting industry to encompass major network affiliates imported by satellite common carriers to C-band and direct broadcast satellite providers—through packages such as Primetime 24 and its associated "Denver 5" tier, and
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#17327763671975896-526: A higher fee for the national telecasts to varying success. After Bowie Kuhn was appointed Commissioner in 1981, team owners lobbied the league to place a tax on superstation telecasts; the proposed tax passed in a 24–2 vote (with the Braves and the Cubs dissenting). Other legal attempts by Kuhn and league management to reduce the superstation telecasts ultimately failed because of federal copyright laws that protected
6164-432: A lack of corroborating evidence of any negative effects on game attendance and league revenue, suggesting that sports leagues have used superstation telecasts of their games as a scapegoat for financial problems incurred by the league caused by other factors such as the performance of certain teams and management issues. The only federal restrictions applying to sports events shown on superstations and other imported signals
6432-559: A lack of funding and interest. (The other partners in the venture, Zenith Electronics and Taft Broadcasting [formerly known as Taft Television & Radio Company during its earlier existence as both an electronics manufacturer and broadcaster] had respectively stopped manufacturing TV sets with teletext capability and had undergone several corporate buyouts). In the early 1990s, shows such as The Flintstones , The Brady Bunch , Scooby-Doo , The Jetsons , Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts, Gilligan's Island , and others remained on
6700-485: A large rotating glass pane, which could display the TBS logo, change to or from a slogan (depending on the promotional spot) to the logo, or be used to show the airtime of programs mentioned in a specific promotion or summarize the next three programs set to air. Title sequences for movies and special presentations—which were accompanied by music incorporating variants of the "TBYes" promotional theme's signature —showed people in
6968-613: A lawsuit in United States Court of Appeals for the Eastern District of New York to stop the rules from going into effect. The National Association of Broadcasters and Field Communications subsequently filed stay motions to the FCC (which denied the requests) until the Malrite suit was adjudicated, amid concerns over harm that the repeal could incur to station revenue and local viewership of syndicated programs if
7236-596: A lawsuit involving RCA American and SSS's Satellite Communication Systems joint venture over the use of Satcom Transponder 18. 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 ),
7504-407: A local network affiliate: NBC owned-and-operated station KCNC-TV (channel 4, now a CBS owned-and-operated station), ABC affiliate 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,
7772-569: 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
8040-670: A major provider of CATV service and microwave relays throughout the U.S.), which began retransmitting the signal of WGN-TV (channel 9) in Chicago to subscribers of the Dubuque TV-FM Cable Company in Dubuque, Iowa ; WGN's signal soon began to be imported via microwave to other CATV systems throughout the Midwest . Because of changes to cable television regulations in the 1960s and 1970s, carriage of out-of-market independent stations increased significantly, allowing for
8308-609: A massive new self-supporting transmission tower (later known as the Turner Broadcasting tower ), which, at a height of 1,031 feet (314 m), was the tallest freestanding structure ever built in Atlanta and provided Channel 17 a stronger signal than other UHF stations, which was particularly beneficial as television sets of that era were often equipped with low-sensitivity tuners and substandard antennas. Under Rice, WJRJ—the first independent station to begin operation in
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8576-561: A microwave relay unit operated by Inland Microwave Co. to import three Spokane, Washington television stations, ABC affiliate KREM-TV (channel 2, now a CBS affiliate), CBS affiliate KXLY-TV (channel 4, now an ABC affiliate) and NBC affiliate KHQ-TV (channel 6), to its subscribers. Building on this, other cable and CATV systems in smaller municipalities and rural areas sought a foothold by "importing" broadcast television signals from larger nearby or distant cities for their customers, extending their reach beyond their normal coverage area (in
8844-668: A mix of movies, sitcoms and drama series—removed all of its remaining cartoon shorts and animated series (which at the time were running under the Disaster Area banner), migrating those shows exclusively to Cartoon Network . (Many of these series also later became the core of a new channel devoted to classic cartoons, Boomerang , which launched in April 2000.) In 1999, TBS Superstation also refocused its original program offerings, removing documentaries and National Geographic specials—which were shifted over to CNN—in favor of carrying original made-for-TV movies and weekly series such as
9112-554: 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 payments 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
9380-915: A move seen by some as targeting the Cubs' WGN telecasts, Vincent ordered a realignment of the National League (NL) that sought to move the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals to the National League West and the Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Reds to the National League East starting with the 1993 season. Tribune staunchly opposed the proposed realignment, filing a breach of contract lawsuit accusing Vincent of overstepping his authority in ordering
9648-505: A move that would pave the way for the emergence of additional superstations. The policy also commenced review on FCC applications filed by four individual satellite carriers to authorize relay of other independent stations through the Satcom satellite fleet: Reactions to the FCC's 1978 "open entry" policy ruling among program distributors ranged from "anger to passive acceptance," with concerns that satellite-distributed superstations would not adequately compensate program syndicators based on
9916-530: A national cable service were made possible through various FCC deregulatory actions on signal importation during the 1970s, among them was a cable rules package passed in March 1972 that allowed cable systems in the 100 largest markets the right to carry imported signals (including the addition of two distant signals not already available in the market), restricted cable systems in smaller markets to carrying only three network stations and one independent station (except for undefinable markets that would not be limited in
10184-700: A national game package to a television network and not those involving individual teams.) After four separate rulings in favor of Tribune and the Bulls issued by Northern District Judge Hubert L. Will (on January 26, 1991, and January 6, 1995), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (on April 14, 1992), and the U.S. Supreme Court (on November 5, 1992), a Seventh Circuit judiciary panel overturned their 1992 ruling on September 10, 1996, which forced WGN-TV – which had been allowed to air at least 30 Bulls telecasts over its local and national feeds between
10452-414: A pay television service throughout the United States. By June 2023, this number has dropped to 71.3 million households. TBS was originally established on December 17, 1976, as the national feed of Turner's Atlanta, Georgia , independent television station , WTCG . The decision to begin offering WTCG via satellite transmission to cable and satellite subscribers throughout the United States expanded
10720-714: A precedent for today's basic cable television and signaled the start of the revolution of basic cable programming in the United States. Soon after, an increasing number of cable television providers throughout the United States sought to carry WTCG on their systems. Within three years of WTCG achieving national status, the signals of fellow independent stations WOR-TV (now MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station WWOR-TV ) in New York City and WGN-TV in Chicago were also uplinked to satellite for distribution as national superstations; eventually, other independents such as KTVT (now
10988-505: A previously blackout-subjected imported signal that was added after the rules were repealed, alongside existing royalties paid to the CRT "Basic Fund". The increase met with backlash from cable industry executives and lobbyists, led by National Cable Television Association (NCTA) President Tom Wheeler , who were concerned that it would result in the removal of superstations and other distant signals as well as harm independent stations supported by
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11256-454: A purchase option that Time Warner chose to exercise on September 16. Time Warner held out on an option to acquire SSS through a common stock buyout and instead chose a cash payment citing the "strong overall financial performance of its businesses and its belief that its stock remains undervalued" in spite of price appreciation having been appreciated. The purchase gave Time Warner control over uplink responsibilities for TBS. On January 1, 1998,
11524-426: A result of ratings or revenue losses from the imported signal, an action that was considered a greenlight to the creation of additional national superstations. While most superstations took on a passive stance on their distribution—programming to their local audience while benefiting tacitly from their extended distribution—a small number attempted to fight efforts to be redistributed; in March 1979, Metromedia —which
11792-506: A separate cable/satellite channel that retained the TBS name. In addition, the channel 17 changeover allowed Atlanta-area cable and IPTV subscribers—including those of Comcast and Charter Communications —that previously were only able to receive WTBS's local Atlanta signal to begin receiving the national TBS feed for the first time since the early 1980s. (Despite the separation of TBS and its former Atlanta parent station, some local television listings publications have continued to refer to
12060-801: A show among the 50 highest-rated cable programs. The channel's third late-night talk show, The Pete Holmes Show , debuted on October 28, 2013, hosted by comedian Pete Holmes (like Lopez Tonight , it could not capitalize on Conan as its lead-in and was cancelled in May 2014). On May 14, 2015, at the Turner Upfront presentation, president Kevin Reilly announced a major shift within the next few years for TBS and TNT. The expanded development slate would see TBS feature more original live-action comedies, original animated series, more late-night talk shows, and lots more of "big unscripted ideas with attitude". One of
12328-422: 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. In 1962, Oneonta, New York -based Eastern Microwave Inc. (EMI) – a company that was developed after a technician employed with the parent CATV system observed
12596-664: 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
12864-454: A small independent television station that regularly placed near the bottom of the ratings among Atlanta's television stations well into the 1970s and was available only in Georgia and neighboring states to a major coast-to-coast operation, pioneering the distribution of broadcast television stations via satellite transmission to pay television subscribers nationwide. Ted Turner's innovation set
13132-646: A sports event—particularly one shown during prime time—was preempted.) One of the first known legal efforts to challenge superstation telecasts of sports events came in April 1981, when Eastern Microwave Inc. filed a declaratory judgement inquiry in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York , contending that its cable retransmissions of WOR's New York Mets telecasts did not constitute copyright infringement. Mets owner Doubleday Sports Inc. contended it had
13400-427: A team to terminate the contract if broadcasts were re-transmitted "by any means" to more than 200,000 homes outside the team's territory, launched a petition to the FCC to redefine how its non-duplication rules constitute a "network program" to force cable systems to blackout superstation-licensed live sports broadcasts, and asked Congress for the repeal the compulsory copyright license and the inclusion of an amendment to
13668-404: A television station exclusively holds the local broadcast rights to a particular program, even if the out-of-market station has the same owner as the program's claimant station. The main difference between the original Syndex law and the version enacted in 1988 was that the blackout provisions applied to almost all programming, including special event programs distributed through syndication (such as
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#173277636719713936-441: A time and rarely renewed their contractual rights to continue airing them, after which WTCG bought the syndicated programs second-hand at much lower rates. By the mid-1970s, The Andy Griffith Show , The Flintstones , Leave It to Beaver , The Little Rascals , My Three Sons , Star Trek , The Three Stooges , and many others were added to the station's schedule. By the time Turner acquired WTCG, most U.S. cities below
14204-806: A traditional independent station with a separate schedule exclusively catering to the Atlanta market. 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 . That station—which its original parent originally filed to transmit UHF channel 46, before modifying it to assign channel 17 as its frequency in February 1966—was founded by Rice Broadcasting Inc. (owned by Atlanta entrepreneur Jack M. Rice, Jr., owner of locally based pay television firms Atlanta Telemeter Inc. and Home Theaters of Georgia Inc.). Rice built
14472-439: Is a form of distant signal , a broadcast television signal —usually a commercially licensed station—that is retransmitted via communications satellite or microwave relay to multichannel television providers (including cable , direct broadcast satellite and IPTV services) over a broad area beyond its primary terrestrial signal range . Outside of their originating media market , superstations are often treated akin to
14740-537: Is an American basic cable television network owned by the Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery . It carries a variety of programming , with a focus on comedy , along with some sports events through TNT Sports , including Major League Baseball , Stanley Cup playoffs , and the NCAA men's basketball tournament . As of September 2018, TBS was received by approximately 90.391 million households that subscribe to
15008-608: Is broadcast on National Geographic 's 171 channels around the world. In 2018, Bacon was replaced by Phil Keoghan who is best known for hosting The Amazing Race . Variety magazine described the series: "The new-model 'Explorer' is described as a weekly 'docu-talk' series that will feature magazine-style field reporting, celebrity guest and talk show segments shot in front of a studio audience." National Geographic Specials were being produced by Pittsburgh station WQED for PBS . National Geographic Explorer began broadcasting in April 1985 on Nickelodeon . The following year,
15276-417: Is shared with sister network Adult Swim . The channel's daytime schedule is heavily dominated by reruns of current and former network comedies, with these shows also airing in the evening and sporadically during the overnight hours. As of 2023, these programs consist of Family Matters , Friends , The Big Bang Theory , Young Sheldon , and Modern Family . Most reruns shown on TBS are broadcast in
15544-610: The Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon and the Easter Seals Telethon ). The distant signal regulations allowed cable systems in the 100 largest markets to carry imported signals as a matter of right (including the addition of two distant signals not already available in the market), restricted cable systems in smaller markets to only being able to carry three network stations and one independent station (except for undefinable markets that would not be limited in
15812-477: The 1992–93 and 1995–96 seasons per agreement between the lawsuit parties – to relegate the 35 Bulls games it was scheduled to air during the 1996–97 season exclusively to the Chicago area signal. (The embargoed Bulls telecasts were supplanted on the WGN superstation feed by syndicated feature films, and caused the national preemption of the station's 9:00 p.m. newscast on nights when prime time games overran into
16080-732: The Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball club, the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA - both of which were owned by Turner - and the Atlanta Flames of the 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
16348-514: The Atlanta Hawks and other NBA teams, and professional wrestling including Georgia Championship Wrestling , Jim Crockett Promotions and later World Championship Wrestling ). WTBS maintained a nearly identical program schedule as the national feed, aside from FCC -mandated public affairs and educational programming that only aired on the local signal. By the early 2000s, TBS had begun to focus more intensively on comedic programming, including sitcoms and other series. On October 1, 2007, TBS
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#173277636719716616-544: The Cable News Network (CNN) (launched on June 1, 1980), HLN (launched as CNN2 on January 1, 1982, and later known as CNN Headline News from 1983 to 2007), Turner Network Television (TNT) (launched on October 3, 1988), Cartoon Network (launched on October 1, 1992), Turner Classic Movies (TCM) (launched on April 14, 1994), and TruTV (folded into Turner, as Court TV , following the closure of parent Time Warner's acquisition of Liberty Media 's 50% interest in
16884-492: The Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992 that would force superstations to enforce blackouts of sporting events if a conflict occurred with a local telecast of the same game. (The latter amendment spurred an on-air campaign by Turner Broadcasting, which saw responses, mostly opposed to the proposed legislation, by more than 17,000 viewers.) Then in July 1992, in
17152-408: The Copyright Act of 1976 in separate Senate floor and House voice votes . The law provides cable systems with a compulsory license – which, under Section 111, also applies to "passive" (passthrough) satellite carriers, allowing them to retransmit "copyrighted programming from any over-the-air [television and radio] stations across the country [or, with range restrictions based on their distance from
17420-816: The Midwestern and Southeastern United States : 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 . At that moment, approximately 24,000 additional households began receiving the WTCG signal. The station's first national broadcast was the 1948 Dana Andrews – Cesar Romero film Deep Waters , which had been in progress for 30 minutes on channel 17 in Atlanta. With this move, WTCG would become one of
17688-407: The Midwestern and Southeastern United States. At 1:00 pm. ET (12:00 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 (which had started on
17956-486: 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 . During the first quarter of 2012, TBS's viewership in the 18-49 adult demographic beat all other advertiser-supported channels, in spite of the fact that TBS did not air any original programs in prime time during that period nor had it aired
18224-540: The National Association of Broadcasters [NAB] and broadcasting companies such as Kelly Broadcasting, McGraw-Hill Broadcasting and Taft Television & Radio Company , also lodged an unsuccessful bit to deny SSS's application to grant an expansion of WTCG's service to Puerto Rico , Alaska and Canada.) On October 25, 1978, the FCC implemented an "open entry" policy for satellite resale carriers wanting to feed local television stations to cable systems,
18492-680: 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. 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
18760-588: The U.S. Copyright Office the ability to charge cable systems royalty fees to be compensated to the owners of a copyrighted program. The station would still be subjected to program duplication restrictions covered under the original 1972 incarnation of the Syndication Exclusivity Rules (or "SyndEx"), which—prior to its repeal in July 1980—allowed television stations to claim local exclusivity over syndicated programs and required cable systems to either black out or secure an agreement with
19028-565: 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. A major concern brought about by
19296-513: 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 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,
19564-558: The " Thrilla in Manila " boxing match. In December 1975, Ted Turner unveiled plans to distribute his station over communications satellite, enabling WTCG to extend distribution of its programming to cable and C-band satellite subscribers throughout the United States, especially in markets lacking even a distant independent station. 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
19832-650: The " Thrilla in Manila " boxing match. 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
20100-521: The "Non-Stop Comedy Block", a late-afternoon block of mostly adult-targeted comedy series that debuted in January 2002. In September 2003, TBS Superstation dropped Little House on the Prairie and other dramatic programming as a part of a format shift toward comedic programs, such as sitcom reruns, original reality television series, and theatrically released comedy films. As part of this refocusing,
20368-485: The "Sunday Morning In Front of the TV" block. Following Turner's acquisition by Time Warner, among the programming changes instituted after the merger was the addition of Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons that were released after August 1, 1948, which began airing on TBS as well as sister channel Cartoon Network in April 1997. On September 22, 1995, Time Warner —a New York City -based media company formed in 1990 through
20636-415: The "Superstation" sub-brand was once again dropped in February 2004, with the channel reverting to being branded as simply TBS . Subsequently, on June 4, 2004, to signify the channel's new comedy programming focus, TBS introduced a new logo (designed by Publicis New York) that rendered the channel's name in lowercase and incorporated a semicircle made to resemble a mouth open as if it were laughing and adopted
20904-544: The 1930s and 1940s, sitcoms (such as Father Knows Best , Green Acres , Hazel , I Love Lucy , and The Lucy Show ), and Japanese animated series (such as Astro Boy , Kimba the White Lion , Marine Boy , The Space Giants , Speed Racer , and Ultraman ). The station also carried sports, such as Atlanta Braves baseball, Atlanta Hawks basketball, Atlanta Flames hockey, and Georgia Championship Wrestling . WTCG also made very low bids to acquire
21172-523: The 1989 revamp of Headline News and the 1991 redesign of WTBS itself (handled by Burns' brother James). 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. Other voiceovers were handled by Turner employees, most notably music director Bill "Troll" Tullis, who generally voiced station IDs and other miscellaneous work with
21440-552: The 58% interest by majority-owner Eddie Chiles , a share that Chiles would ultimately sell in a $ 46-million deal to an ownership group led by eventual Texas Governor and U.S. President George W. Bush , real estate developer H. Bert Mack and investor Frank L. Morsani in April 1989. Ueberroth's successor, Fay Vincent , took a more hard-line approach against baseball telecasts shown over superstations. During his two-year tenure as league commissioner, he tried to introduce contract language in local broadcast agreements that would allow
21708-535: The AT&;T–Time Warner merger, when on February 20, 2017, the Meredith Corporation —which had assumed operational responsibilities for WPCH from Turner/Time Warner in January 2011 to form a virtual duopoly with CBS affiliate WGCL-TV (channel 46)—announced that it would acquire WPCH-TV's license assets from Turner for $ 70 million. (The sale of WPCH to Meredith received FCC approval on April 17, 2017, and
21976-594: The Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Hawks, and WGN-TV's broadcasts of sporting events featuring the Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls—superstation broadcasts of National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Baseball (MLB) games were met with resistance from league commissioners, who contended these telecasts—regardless of the positive effects on team loyalty—diluted the value of their national television contracts with other broadcast and cable networks. Some superstation operators (like Ted Turner and former Tribune Company vice president John Madigan) note
22244-548: The Atlanta area on channel 17. (Promos for WTCG/WTBS programs referenced airtimes for both the Eastern and Central Time Zones until 1987, and the Eastern and Pacific time zones thereafter until 1992 and occasionally beforehand for certain scheduled live sports and event telecasts). In May 1979, Turner made a $ 25,000 donation to a group associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to fund
22512-462: The Atlanta broadcast signal 30 minutes prior). 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 a.m. local time). One key legal point in Turner's contracts with programming distributors and advertisers
22780-413: 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
23048-524: The Atlanta parent station changed its call letters to WTBS (for "Turner Broadcasting System", the name its parent company adopted in accordance with the callsign change). 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. (Accordingly, many cable providers throughout
23316-477: The CRT delayed the fee imposition), various distant signals experienced a combined loss of 493 cable clearances, with WTBS, WGN-TV and WOR-TV making up half the defections with a combined loss of 249 clearances. Other cable-originated services benefited from the fee increases and distant signal defections, with the Cable Health Network (CHN; merged with Daytime in 1984 to form Lifetime ) experiencing
23584-464: The Chicago broadcast feed). To blunt potential subscriber complaints over widespread programming blackouts, many cable systems removed both regional and quasi-national superstations (like WSBK, WPIX and KTVT) as well as other distant signals that their satellite carriers were unable or unwilling to take immediate steps to ensure their programming was "Syndex-proofed" to avoid blackouts. WGN and WTBS saw little negative impact to their distribution following
23852-800: The Communications Act of 1996 that were added through the November 1999 implementation of the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act (SHVIA), which allowed satellite providers to carry local broadcast signals on the Congressionally-suggested condition that the FCC develop rules protecting the sports, network and syndicated programming rights of local broadcasters. On November 2, 2000, the FCC approved identical network non-duplication, syndication exclusivity and sports blackout rules applying to
24120-530: The Copyright Act's definition of what constitutes as a public performance was broad enough to encompass indirect transmission through cable affiliates. The MPAA, the NAB (despite its insistence that the CRT had limited to no authority to set rates outside the mandatory five-year interval), sports leagues and other copyright holders soon asked the Copyright Office to hike its royalty rates to compensate for
24388-553: The Copyright Act's existing structure. 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. (As a comparison, in 1992, ESPN televised 175 baseball games as part of a broader $ 100-million-per year deal at a per-game cost of $ 571,428, about 12 times more than what TBS, WGN, WWOR and WPIX paid cumulatively for their respective team-based packages that year, encompassing
24656-610: The Copyright Royalty Tribunal, a five-member commission of the U.S. Copyright Office that is tasked with reviewing cable and other royalty rates every five years (or sooner, if changes to program exclusivity or signal importation rules are made by the FCC) and compensates eligible owners of a copyrighted program who submit a written claim to receive the mandatory royalty paid by the cable system. Compulsory license rules for broadcast signal distribution were extended to
24924-420: 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. 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
25192-528: The Cubs), MCA Inc. (then owner of WWOR) and Gaylord Broadcasting (then owner of KTVT) soon each agreed to contribute to the fund for the right to air Cubs, White Sox, Yankees, Mets and Rangers games outside the teams' respective home markets. (The total payment reflected the reach of each superstation; by 1992, Turner and the Cubs paid $ 12 million and $ 6 million, respectively, reflecting WTBS's 58-million subscriber audience and WGN's 35 million subscribers at
25460-623: The DOJ's antitrust claims in the lawsuit. The merger closed two days later on June 14, with the company becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T under the renamed parent company WarnerMedia . The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington unanimously upheld the lower court's ruling in favor of AT&T on February 26, 2019. On March 4, 2019, AT&T announced a major reorganization of its broadcasting assets, in which WarnerMedia's television properties would be divided among three divisions within
25728-535: The EMI Service were shown unaltered during simulcasts of programs aired on the New York signal. (This was not an issue with the WGN national feed, as United Video chose to substitute program promotions for shows airing on the Chicago signal that were not cleared on the national feed with those for the replacement shows exclusively seen on the latter, albeit still using station logos and promotional graphics used by
25996-528: The FCC constitutes as FCC-licensed television stations permitted by Congress for retransmission by satellite carriers regardless of whether they reach "served" or "unserved" subscribers pursuant to the Copyright Act (effectively preventing them from subjection to geographic retransmission restrictions and absolving them from copyright liability if received by subscribers not residing in "unserved households" that have limited to no access to television stations offering similar programming). These stations must also fit
26264-442: 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
26532-400: The FCC order in January 1982. Interpretations of the copyright act also led to legal cases against superstation distributors. In April 1981, Tribune Broadcasting filed a copyright infringement suit against United Video in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois , on grounds that United inserted teletext content from its Dow Jones business news service over
26800-673: The FCC passed a new version of the Syndication Exclusivity Rights Rule. The new policy—spurred in part by a 1987 study conducted by the Association of Independent Television Stations (INTV), which provided evidence that programming duplication between superstations and local stations created significant ratings dilution for the latter group in certain time periods and a resulting significant loss of advertising revenue—not only allowed television stations to claim local exclusivity over syndicated programs (even if
27068-788: The FCC to temporarily halt all authority for the satellite distribution and marketing of superstation signals. Concurrent with the Metromedia petition, the NAB—later to be joined in the petition by, among others, the MPAA, the NBA, the National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn , WGN Continental Broadcasting and ABC—urged the FCC to conduct an expedited rulemaking aimed at curbing "the harmful impact of superstation development on broadcast program service to
27336-574: The FM station is now WSSX-FM ), and Jacksonville, Florida (WMBR, now WQOP )—in an all-stock transaction. Under the sale terms, Rice would acquire Turner in an exchange of stock and adopt the Turner Communications name; however, Turner would acquire about 75% of the merged company and own 48.2% of its stock, receiving 1.2 million shares of Rice stock worth an estimated $ 3 million. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted approval of
27604-867: The Family Television Award, the Genesis Award, the DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton Award, the Peabody Award, four gold medals at the International Film and Television Festival of New York, as well as being nominated for two Academy Awards . The original Explorer series ended in 2011 and then was started again in 2015 with the help of original programming president Tim Pastore, hosted by British journalist Richard Bacon , with executive producers Lou Wallach, Jeff Hasler and Brian Lovett. The series
27872-762: The Netlink-distributed A3 package—that could not receive locally based network stations prior the implementation of the Satellite Television Extension and Localization Act in 1999. In the early days of television broadcasting, most large media markets – primarily those ranked among the top 20 in Arbitron and Nielsen estimates – had, by standards of the period, a sizeable number of television stations (sometimes as many as eight or nine in operation). Generally, these markets had three VHF stations that operated as affiliates of
28140-519: 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
28408-464: The Prairie and CHiPs in 1981. Other older shows would eventually be removed from the schedule. WTCG also mixed more movie releases from the 1950s through the 1970s into its schedule. By July 1979, WTCG/WTBS was available to 1,000 cable systems throughout the United States, with a total of 4.8 million cable subscribers receiving the signal. In 1981, Turner decided to split the WTBS satellite feed from its terrestrial signal; under this structure, all of
28676-670: The Second Circuit (in a reversal of the Central District Court decision on October 20) and the Supreme Court (in a February 25, 1983, decision refusing review of the case) both concurred with EMI's arguments, holding that the company constituted as a "passive" carrier exempt from copyright fee payments—along with noting that EMI had only one available transponder for its extraterrestrial services and "naturally" sought to re-transmit "a marketable station"—under
28944-750: The Southeastern United States (including Alabama , Tennessee and South Carolina ). Two major independent station operators began extending coverage of their stations throughout their respective home states and even surrounding states. Gaylord Broadcasting began allowing its independents— WUAB (channel 43, now a CW affiliate) in Lorain – Cleveland , WVTV (channel 18, now a CW affiliate) in Milwaukee , KSTW (channel 11, now an independent station) in Tacoma – Seattle , KTVT (channel 11, now
29212-528: The Supreme Court's framework on the Fortnightly v. United Artists case. On March 31, 1972, the FCC implemented a broad package of cable industry regulations passed that February, which included two rules pertaining to distant signal importation. Among the implemented rules was the original incarnation of the Syndication Exclusivity Rules (or "SyndEx"), which required cable providers to black out any syndicated programs carried on out-of-market stations if
29480-485: The Syndex implementation, with WGN actually heavily benefiting from provider removals of other superstations (including then sister station WPIX) during the early 1990s, allowing for further expansion of its distribution reach. EMI estimated simultaneous losses of 500,000 subscribers and an increase of around one million households to its cable distribution of WWOR, the latter being attributed to some local cable systems adding
29748-879: The Syndex-proof WWOR EMI Service feed. Most complaints over the removal of some regional and quasi-national superstations were because of the loss of access to coverage from regional professional sports teams (such as the Boston Red Sox via WSBK, the Texas Rangers and Dallas Mavericks via KTVT and the New York Yankees via WPIX), leading some systems to resort to cherrypicking sports from the removed superstations to mollify subscribers and local politicians acceding to complaints from their constituents by pushing other cable systems to seek solutions to resume sporting events lost through
30016-492: The TBS national feed—although continuing to operate as a superstation by technicality—began operating under the conventions of a basic cable channel. At that time, the Turner Broadcasting System began to collect subscriber fees (averaging 26¢ per subscriber per month) directly from cable and satellite providers that had previously paid a 30¢-per-month licensing fee to Southern Satellite Systems for access to
30284-503: The TBS signal and a 10¢-per-month copyright fee to a federal copyright tribunal (which, in turn, paid the fee directly to program distributors) for rights to carry its programming. The additional revenue was intended to be used for programming acquisitions, particularly rights to first-run theatrical films. 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
30552-523: The Texas Rangers on January 11, 1985, in a 9–5 confirmation vote (below the two-thirds votes needed to approve the sale). Ueberroth would invoke a "best interests of baseball" clause on February 8 to approve the sale and associated broadcast contract with KTVT, which required Gaylord Broadcasting to pay re-transmission fees for games that the station televised outside of its six-state cable footprint. Similar issues also prevented Gaylord from buying
30820-612: The Time-Warner Communications merger six years prior. (Time Warner and predecessor Warner Communications had owned an 18% interest in Turner Broadcasting since 1987, as part of a cable television industry-backed bailout of the company amid severe financial issues.) Under the terms, Turner would acquire an approximate 10% interest in Time Warner as well as oversee its cable network group—comprising
31088-409: The Turner Broadcasting System announced that WTBS would change its callsign to WPCH-TV , and would be rebranded as "Peachtree TV." 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 . The change occurred on October 1, 2007, with the national feed becoming
31356-534: The Turner Broadcasting System from its purchase of the film studio ), WTBS gained the rights to the entire MGM/UA film library (including certain acquisitions by MGM). It gave WTBS the rights to air many theatrical cartoon shorts such as Tom and Jerry , as well as shows like Gilligan's Island and CHiPs . Along with Tom and Jerry , WTBS began to run The Little Rascals , Looney Tunes / Merrie Melodies cartoons released prior to August 1948, theatrical Popeye cartoon shorts, and Three Stooges shorts under
31624-538: The Turner and Home Box Office units and its minority interests in Comedy Central and E! —and hold a position on the company's board of directors (which he retained until he stepped down from the company in February 2006) upon the merger's closure. 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
31892-409: The U.S. border, from Canada or Mexico]" without seeking the originating station's express permission – that requires payment of a flat semi-annual royalty fee based both on the number of distant signals retransmitted by the system and on their total subscriber receipts (0.675% of their gross receipts for the first distant signal, 0.425% for any other signal up to the fourth and 0.2% for each signal beyond
32160-544: The United States. Immediately after achieving superstation status, WGN-TV became available to an estimated approximately 200 cable systems and 1.5 million subscribers throughout the country; its distribution was heavily concentrated in the 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 U.S. that remained into
32428-499: The United Video case, determining that United was not required to carry the station's teletext transmission. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Northern District of Illinois disagreed, ruling in August 1982 that United Video must retransmit WGN-TV's VBI teletext where directly related to and part of the 9:00 p.m. news simulcast, noting that United had no grounds to claim the unseen teletext exempted it from copyright liability as
32696-406: The WTCG signal to their lineups; by 1978, WTCG was carried on cable providers in all 50 U.S. states, reaching over 2.3 million subscribers, a total that would substantially double each year into the next decade. Because it utilized a broadcast television station as the origination point for its programming, throughout its existence as a superstation, all programs on WTCG/WTBS—which transmitted exactly
32964-629: The WarnerMedia umbrella. TBS, along with TNT, truTV and HBO would be reassigned to WarnerMedia Entertainment. The move would effectively dissolve the Turner Broadcasting System umbrella as part of a wind-down of the Turner name from the reorganized parent company's corporate structure. AT&T did not specify any timetable for the changes to take effect, although WarnerMedia had begun to remove all Turner references in corporate communications and press releases, referring to that unit's networks as "divisions of WarnerMedia". On April 8, 2022, WarnerMedia
33232-441: The [FCC], that is secondarily transmitted by a satellite carrier." Superstations may fall into one of two classifications, based on the factoring of their extended reach for advertising and program acquisition purposes: Through an amendment to the compulsory license statute of the 1947 copyright law, the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999 (SHVIA) created a sub-definition for "nationally distributed superstations," which
33500-471: The acquired program's national availability and provide difficulty for program sales once content was sold to broadcasters in smaller markets with superstation importation via cable. Then on November 4, the FCC rescinded a provision requiring cable systems seeking a waiver of signal importation limits to prove the unique circumstances that justified the waiver, while still requiring them to show that local stations would not suffer adverse public service impacts as
33768-439: The acquisition on December 10, 1969, giving Turner its first television property. Soon after Turner received approval of its purchase of WJRJ-TV in January 1970, Turner changed the station's call letters to WTCG (which officially stood for Turner Communications Group, although the station used "Watch This Channel Grow" as a promotional slogan). The sale was formally completed four months later on April 6, 1970, at which time Turner
34036-405: The agency began allowing unlimited signal importation upon either the final daily sign-off of a local " must carry " station or starting at 1:00 a.m. ( Eastern and Pacific Time )/12:00 a.m. (in all other time zones), to avoid programming conflicts with late-night programing being carried "in progress" or avoid instances in which systems would have to run a blank screen until the start of
34304-399: The amount of superstation-licensed NBA telecasts to 20 games per season. This sparked a 5½-year legal battle against the NBA by Tribune Broadcasting and Chicago Bulls parent Chicago Professional Sports L.P. The conspiracy and antitrust lawsuit filed by the co-plaintiffs in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on October 16, 1990, alleged that the 20-game limit
34572-639: The available population reach of the region, most mid-sized and smaller media markets often had only the basic three network-affiliated stations (either in the form of three standalone affiliates or a primary-secondary structure in which one or two stations carried programs selected among the schedules of two or all three major networks), with imported network affiliates often serving as default outlets where one or more networks were not available locally. Early community antenna television (CATV) systems were restricted from retransmitting distant signals to communities no more than approximately 100 miles (160 km) from
34840-403: The banner The TBS Tom & Jerry Funhouse running for either one hour or 90 minutes during the morning hours and for an hour (later, half-hour) in the afternoon from 1986 to 1995. In the late 1980s, WTBS decreased the number of movies broadcast during the day slightly and began to add sitcoms from the 1970s (such as Happy Days , The Jeffersons , Good Times , and One Day at a Time ) to
35108-522: The basis for Turner to develop Cable Music Channel , an attempt at a competitor to MTV that operated for five weeks from October 26 to November 30, 1984, and was one of the shortest-lived channels in American cable television history.) Beginning in 1991, a handful of shows (mostly movies) that were shown nationally were pre-empted in the Atlanta market in order to broadcast FCC-mandated news, public affairs , and children's programming; this continued until
35376-445: The basis that "local stations are not adversely affected when a cable system offers subscribers signals from television stations in other cities." The repeal of its signal importation and Syndex rules resulted in many cable systems beginning to carry other national superstations and additional regional out-of-market independents. The following day (July 23), television station owner Malrite Broadcasting (later Malrite Communications) filed
35644-480: The beginning of that year. By 1992, TBS was available in 58 million households with cable and satellite television service, accounting for more than half of all homes in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands —and carried by 14,815 cable systems throughout the country. During the 1980s, WTBS focused heavily on movies—running two films during the day, and a largely movie-exclusive schedule during
35912-521: The broadcasts. 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. The Tribune Company (then-owner of WGN and WPIX, the former of which cited its absent accounting of its national cable audience in its advertising rates for its initial participation reluctance, as well as
36180-455: The case of WWOR, local advertising sold by individual cable systems. This would be achieved by "splitting" the signal, often requiring the use of a separate transponder to switch between the local feed and the alternate programming feed, so that certain programs viewed in the station's home market could be easily replaced with separate content that would only be shown over the national cable feed. While United Video made efforts to clear as much of
36448-565: The case of network-affiliated stations, this was to improve reception into areas that could not adequately receive the station's signal, whether within or at the edge of the contour, even with an outdoor antenna). Anxious for more viewers, the stations assisted by relaying their signals by wire or microwave transmission. Within a few years, many other microwave-capable CATV system operators began to import out-of-market television signals based on program offerings they thought would appeal to their subscribers. Except for areas that were far enough out of
36716-666: The channel as an Atlanta station in their channel charts and/or by that station's former WTBS call letters in said charts and as an identifier in listings grids). 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. Beginning with the 2008 season , TBS began airing Major League Baseball postseason games, with regular season baseball coverage expanding to include games from other MLB teams. In November 2009, TBS debuted its first late-night talk show , Lopez Tonight , hosted by comedian George Lopez . One year later,
36984-417: The channel expanded its late-night offerings with the November 8, 2010, debut of Conan , after TBS struck a deal to give Conan O'Brien a show on the channel on the heels of his controversial exit as host of NBC 's The Tonight Show . Lopez Tonight ended its run on August 12, 2011, after it was cancelled due to a steep decline in ratings. In 2011, TBS also obtained a portion of the television rights to
37252-490: The channel in May 2006). Turner and station management treated WTCG as an "active" superstation, directly asserting national promotional responsibilities, investing in programming, and charging advertising rates at the national and local levels. This resulted in the station paying for syndicated programming at (albeit reasonably cheaper) rates comparable to other national networks, rather than merely receiving royalty payments from cable systems for programs to which it held
37520-406: The channel's national programming prominence, with the WTBS Atlanta signal continuing to use the separate "SuperStation 17" branding; this coincided with a major promotional campaign positioning the channel as "Great American Television". By 1987, SuperStation WTBS was available to 41.6 million households with a cable or satellite subscription nationwide; this total jumped to 49 million cable homes by
37788-588: The cities of minor league franchises and a 35-mile [56 km] zone around a team's local television rights-holder.) The major professional sports leagues eventually imposed their own broadcasting restrictions around the number of games that could air annually on any out-of-market stations, which resulted in superstations sometimes substituting sports events with syndicated programming and feature films in adherence. (This had an adverse effect on WGN, WWOR and WPIX, which each had news departments, as some of their respective newscasts would be subjected to substitutions if
38056-473: The claimant station or a syndication distributor to continue carrying a claimed program through an out-of-market station. At 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time on December 17, 1976, WTCG became America's first " superstation "—independent stations distributed to cable providers throughout their respective regions, or the entire country—when its signal began to be beamed via the Satcom 1 satellite to four cable systems in
38324-454: The classification for those stations) and the various owners of WSBK ( 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
38592-714: The closest signal, which was a detriment to many small communities, especially sparsely populated areas of the Western United States, that were too distant from any receivable signal. As CATV system capacity increased from three channels to five during the early 1950s, several communities in the Western U.S. began incorporating CATV systems using microwave relay systems that made it possible to retransmit broadcast signals over great distances. In September 1956, Columbia Television Co. in Pendleton, Oregon began using
38860-421: The company was spinning off its satellite carrier assets to focus on TV Guide ' s magazine, direct-to-cable program listings and 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
39128-423: The construction of a new transmitter, in exchange for acquiring the WTBS call letters that had been assigned to the university's Cambridge -based student radio station for use on the channel 17 license; Turner also agreed to donate an additional $ 25,000 to the group if the FCC agreed to assign the WTBS calls to Turner Communications. (MIT subsequently changed the radio station's calls to WMBR .) On August 27, 1979,
39396-571: The copyright as "passive" superstations—like WGN and WWOR, which opted to take a neutral position on their national distribution and left national promotional duties to the satellite carriers that retransmitted their signals—did. (Unlike WTCG, most other superstations had their signals redistributed without their owner's express permission under a provision in Section 111 of the Copyright Act of 1976, which allowed local cable systems to "retransmit copyrighted programming from any over-the-air stations across
39664-447: 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
39932-438: The country even carried it on channel 17 during some part of its existence as a superstation). However, the national feed continued to occasionally use the same on-air branding as the Atlanta area signal (which was referred to on-air at the time as "WTBS Channel 17") until October 1980. By 1981, the Atlanta station would be branded as "SuperStation 17", on the national feed available outside of the Atlanta area, though, references to
40200-436: The country to their subscribers under a compulsory license"). WTCG initially was identified as "Channel 17" or "Super 17" both locally in Atlanta and on cable providers outside of that area; by 1979, the station identified primarily by its call letters locally and nationally. Over time, as WTCG was also beginning to gain traction in the Atlanta market, the station also began to gain traction nationally as more cable systems added
40468-504: The definition of what may constitute even a de facto superstation varies depending on the country and the overall availability of the distributed stations. In its most precise meaning, per an amended definition under the Copyright Act of 1947, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States defines a superstation as a "television broadcast station, other than a network station, licensed by
40736-422: The development of the first true "regional superstations." By way of the microwave connections, Ted Turner began allowing the signal of Atlanta, Georgia independent station WTCG (channel 17, later renamed WTBS and now WPCH-TV ) – which he purchased from station founder and fellow Atlanta-based entrepreneur Jack Rice Jr. in December 1969 in a $ 3-million all-stock transaction – to be distributed into other parts of
41004-421: The distant network stations could only be distributed to "unserved households" that were unable to receive a local affiliate off-air.) For many years after the passage of SyndEx for cable systems, the satellite television industry remained exempt from syndication exclusivity regulations, resulting in subscribers of direct broadcast satellite and C-Band providers continuing to be able to view all programming seen on
41272-439: The distribution of WGN as its national feed was compliant with those restrictions.) The Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act (SHVERA), signed into law on December 8, 2004, allowed satellite providers to carry " significantly viewed " superstations and distant network signals to subscribers royalty-free and with the payment of retransmission consent, provided that the subscriber also receives local stations from
41540-579: The earliest opponents to the emergence of superstations was the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which in 1977, with the growing distribution of WTCG, petitioned the FCC to investigate the impact of and regulate superstations amid concerns over the potential financial losses for programs that MPAA member companies distributed to other television stations, which it posited would not be offset by royalty payments by cable systems. (The MPAA, which had its inquiry petition backed by
41808-577: 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 . (By June 1976, WTCG
42076-552: The early 1990s, as some of the cable affiliates that carried either superstation began replacing them with the WGN national feed. The passage of the Satellite Home Viewer Act of 1988 on October 19, 1988, extended the compulsory license to direct-to-home (DTH) satellite services, protecting distribution of broadcast signals to dish owners under existing copyright statutes. (The act's provisions primarily benefited so-called "affiliate superstations," provided that
42344-461: 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
42612-535: The eastern half of the country. The Braves as well as the Cubs' American League [AL] rivals, the Chicago White Sox, had each already played many late-evening [Eastern/Central Time] games during the regular and postseason against West Coast teams in the western divisions of the National and American Leagues .) U.S. District Judge Suzanne B. Conlon issued a preliminary injunction in favor of Tribune and
42880-829: The enactment of SHVIA) are restrictive, leaving little possibility that any television stations would in the future be able to befit such criteria and legally be considered a national superstation. While the FCC defines "superstation" as a term, it does not prohibit its use by others outside of that scope; for example, primary ABC /subchannel-only CW affiliate KYUR (channel 13) in Anchorage, Alaska had collectively branded itself and its network of repeater stations (including full-power satellites in Fairbanks and Juneau ) as " Alaska 's SuperStation" from 1996 to 2011. Some Spanish language networks like Telemundo and Univision may only have one station within an entire state that serves
43148-421: 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
43416-539: The evening lineup; Little House on the Prairie aired during the late mornings continuously from 1986 to 2003. Music videos also aired during its late night lineup on weekends from June 1983 to May 1992 as part of the program Night Tracks , which aired in the form of two three-hour-long blocks (later reduced to two two-hour blocks in August 1989, and then to two 90-minute blocks in the spring of 1990), barring pre-emptions from sporting events that ran over their scheduled end-time. (The success of Night Tracks served as
43684-826: The expense of blacking out or substituting non-compliant programs. On September 28, 1989, the channel's name was changed to TBS SuperStation to reflect the strong national standing of the channel. Debuting concurrently with the name change was a promotional campaign utilizing the slogan "TBYes!", featuring various stars of programs seen on TBS—including, among others, Bob Denver and Alan Hale of Gilligan's Island (as their respective characters Gilligan and Captain Jonas Grumby aka "The Skipper" ), Al Lewis of The Munsters (as his character Grandpa ), Buddy Ebsen of The Beverly Hillbillies (as his character J.D. "Jed" Clampett) and Jimmie Walker of Good Times (appearing as himself)—with graphical elements of fireworks and
43952-456: The extended audience. By the time the fees were imposed on March 15 (which was dubbed by cable systems as "Black Tuesday for Cable Viewers"), NCTA estimates showed that about 6.3 million subscribers nationwide had lost access to one or more distant signals because of defections by cable systems that wanted to avoid paying the increased copyright fees. Dating back weeks prior to the deadline (as some systems chose to remove imported signals after
44220-419: The first success stories out of this effort was the satirical news series Full Frontal with Samantha Bee , hosted by the former correspondent for Comedy Central 's The Daily Show (which served as a basis for Full Frontal ' s format). A new logo, which was previously revealed on social media six weeks prior on September 16, made its official debut on the evening of October 31, 2015. Bumpers featured
44488-432: The first television stations, and only the second U.S. broadcaster—after HBO—to be transmitted via satellite, instead of the then-standard method of using microwave relay to distribute a programming feed. Turner's decision to turn his television station into a national programming service was an expensive gamble on his part, given that he spent about $ 6 million of the $ 14 million that the station made in annual gross revenue at
44756-601: 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
45024-504: The following tight date-specific criteria: Beyond the six stations that fit that criteria (including WPIX , KTLA and KWGN-TV , which, at present, uniquely constitute as both "network stations" as well as "nationally distributed superstations" under the FCC and the SHVIA's overlapping definitions for both), the definitions under SHVIA and Congressional retransmission consent rules (per Section 325 of U.S. Code Title 47 , as amended through
45292-449: The format. By May 1978, WTCG was being received by 1.5 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 million cable subscribers plus an additional 556,000 households that received
45560-471: The former case, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5–1 vote on June 18, 1968, that CATV systems like Fortnightly did not incur copyright liability by retransmitting distant signals as they acted more akin to "viewers" than broadcasters; the latter case, ruled on May 2, 1972, by Judge Constance Baker Motley of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York , affirmed that stance based on
45828-400: The fourth, with a separate fixed-rate exemptions for systems that have a semi-annual revenue either below $ 80,000 or between $ 80,000 and $ 160,000), prohibits any modifications to the imported broadcast signal and its copyrighted content (such as commercials substituted by the cable system, permitting local broadcast stations to sue the systems if violating modifications are made), and established
46096-689: 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
46364-586: 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). 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
46632-568: The home satellite industry on October 21, 1988, through the passage of Satellite Home Viewer Act of 1988 , which also restricted access to network programs exclusively to home dish users in "white areas" where broadcast signals are unviewable via antenna or cable (a provision that would become pertinent to most of the remaining superstations following network launches that took place in 1995). The distribution of these superstations eventually caused conflicts between these stations and providers of similar, or identical, programming in local markets. Among
46900-458: 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 –San Francisco followed behind on December 16, 1978, when Satellite Communications Systems uplinked the station onto
47168-524: The lack of support for the provision in the Senate. The NBA also undertook actions to limit superstation telecasts of the league's games. In 1982, it began prohibiting television stations that reached at least 5% of all out-of-market cable households from airing games that conflicted with those shown on the league's national cable partners (at the time, ESPN and USA Network ); this transitioned in June 1985 to
47436-517: 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. The term has been (and, in
47704-484: The latter two aspects of the aforementioned FCC-defined "national superstation" criteria, provided that the service complies with the non-duplication, syndication exclusivity and sports blackout rules. (TBS was not covered under the SHVIA's de facto distant signal grandfathering clause as its national feed was considered a technically separate entity from its over-the-air parent feed in Atlanta. The act's network non-duplication and Syndex rules were thought to negatively affect
47972-477: 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
48240-416: The local broadcast signal to some degree—comprising both programs aired by the parent station for which the companies were able to secure the national retransmission rights (including some held over from before the SyndEx law was enacted), and supplementary programs acquired specifically for the national cable feed to absolve any holes caused by exclusivity claims—as well as separate national advertising, and in
48508-417: The local broadcast signals of national and regional superstations (except where the provider already offered the SyndEx-compliant cable feed). 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
48776-418: The logo being formed into different shapes, objects, structures, and surroundings (such as a gravestone , a flag on a submarine sandwich , and a monster eating the former logo, etc.). On October 22, 2016, AT&T announced an offer to acquire Time Warner for $ 108.7 billion, including debt it would assume from the latter, the merger would bring Time Warner's various media properties, including TBS, under
49044-428: The loss of the distant signal carriage and syndication exclusivity deregulation. On October 22, 1982, the Copyright Royalty Tribunal instituted a statutory license rate adjustment, establishing a 3.75% royalty fee of a cable system's gross receipts from subscribers (if their semi-annual revenue exceeds $ 214,000) for carriage of each previously impermissible distant signal and a SyndEx surcharge for programs transmitted on
49312-535: The majority of its programming for carriage on both its national and Atlanta area feeds. (Certain local programs carried by the station, such as public affairs and educational children's programs, were not carried on the TBS national feed, but these omissions were because those programs were strictly intended to fulfill local obligations for public affairs content.) United Video and Eastern Microwave respectively opted to devise standalone national feeds of WGN and WWOR, each incorporating an alternate schedule differing from
49580-423: 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. Copyright laws pertaining to broadcast signal carriage by satellite providers were eventually overhauled through amendments to
49848-487: The merger of Time Inc. and Warner Bros. corporate parent Warner Communications —reached an agreement to acquire the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) and its associated properties (including TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, CNN and CNN Headline News as well as Turner Entertainment ) for $ 7.5 billion; the deal would also expand Time Warner's pay television holdings, as it had owned HBO and sister premium service Cinemax as well as cable television provider Time Warner Cable since
50116-445: The most growth; by March 1983, 1.2 million of the 9.1 million subscribers that CHN had at the time came from cable systems that replaced a distant signal with the channel. (Later estimates showed that WTBS lost 320,000 subscribers, while Eastern Microwave recouped around 200,000 subscribers for WOR and United Video recouped around 600,000 of its CRT-related losses of 1.2 million subscribers by May 1983.) On May 18, 1988,
50384-516: The national feed "100% blackout-free." 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
50652-509: The network's look included a spiral/swirl shape (frequently positioned behind the TBS logo, presumably to depict the superstation's broadcast signal radiating outwards), as well as "Super"-branded blocks (such as Super Prime for prime time movie presentations, "Super TV" for weekday daytime films and series, and Super Weekend for film telecasts on Saturdays and Sundays). On December 17, 1997, Time Warner purchased Southern Satellite Systems from Liberty Media for $ 213 million in cash, as part of
50920-529: The new rules taking effect on January 1, 1990, Turner Broadcasting began to fill the WTBS schedule with additional programming—primarily, off-network syndicated comedy and drama series (such as The Jeffersons and Good Times ) as well as acquired film packages (consisting of both theatrical features and made-for-television films) and original programs (such as Jacques Cousteau specials, and National Audubon Society and National Geographic programs)—for which it would hold exclusive cable rights in order to make
51188-458: 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
51456-667: 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 p.m. 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 snowbirds and other Chicago residents who temporarily or permanently relocated elsewhere in
51724-408: The next program. As such, the distant signal would act as a timeshare feed on a cable channel otherwise occupied by a local or out-of-market broadcast station during the occupying station's normal sign-off period. The last major obstacle to the creation of a national superstation was knocked down on December 19, 1975, when the FCC unanimously voted to repeal a 1972 rule requiring cable systems selecting
51992-555: The nighttime hours after 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time (with exceptions made for scheduled sporting events, specials, original programs and, in the case of Sunday nights, off-network syndicated series and paid programming). At other times, mainly during the daytime hours each weekday and on weekend mornings, WTBS continued to run mostly classic sitcoms and vintage cartoons. In 1986, when Ted Turner purchased Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / United Artists (MGM/UA, which he would sell back to previous owner Kirk Kerkorian that October due to debt incurred by
52260-407: The number of carried imported signals), and instituted leapfrogging rules that required systems importing distant independent stations from the top-25 markets to choose from one or both of the two markets closest to the provider's city of license and any systems carrying the signal of a third independent being required to pick up a UHF or, if such a station is not available, VHF station located within
52528-407: The number of carried imported signals), and instituted leapfrogging rules that required systems importing distant independent stations from the top-25 markets to choose from one or both of the two markets closest to the provider's city of license and any systems carrying the signal of a third independent being required to pick up a UHF or, if such a station is not available, VHF station located within
52796-747: The operations of Montana -based microwave-to-CATV firm Western Microwave – was founded to relay the signals of WPIX, WNEW-TV and WOR-TV (channel 9, now MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station WWOR-TV and licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey ) to Oneonta Video and other CATV systems in surrounding areas. Eastern Microwave began distributing WOR-TV and either WPIX or WNEW (depending on the system) in March 1965 to three Upstate New York cable systems (Valley Cable Vision in Canajoharie , Carthage Video Division in Carthage and Cortland Video in Carthage ). Other microwave firms were also developed to relay independent television stations to cable systems, including H&B Microwave (a subsidiary of H&B Communications Corp.,
53064-640: 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 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
53332-490: The out-of-market station has the same owner as the station with that particular exclusive program) and required cable systems to black out claimed programs; it also granted cable systems or carrier firms the ability to secure an agreement with the claimant station or a syndication distributor to continue carrying a claimed program through an out-of-market station, allowing some superstations to acquire partial or exclusive national cable rights to certain programs. The law also closed
53600-413: The preceding calendar week of the proposed deletion. (Other leagues had proposed a broader blackout zone: the National Hockey League [NHL] suggested that the protection zone should be extended across a team's entire home market, while the National Football League [NFL] and Major League Baseball each advocated for a 75-mile (121 km) zone, with the latter also seeking a 20-mile [32 km] zone around
53868-422: 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 premium cable service Home Box Office ( HBO )'s groundbreaking innovation to retransmit its programming nationwide using communications satellites beginning with its September 30, 1975, telecast of
54136-434: The programming seen on the WGN Chicago feed as it possibly could, EMI increasingly filled the national WWOR EMI Service feed with library content distributed by Universal Television , MGM Television and Quinn Martin —consisting of classic television series from the 1950s to the 1970s—as well as select programs from the Christian Science Monitor television service, alongside shows on WWOR's local program schedule that it
54404-420: The provided information services over the feed. SSS began transmitting the United Press International (UPI) teletext news service over the national feed's VBI signal in 1979. 1981 saw the VBI signal begin to carry the Keyfax service out of Chicago. In 1985, SSS repurposed the VBI signal to transmit the Electra teletext service, Electra was transmitted over the VBI until the service was shut down in 1993 due to
54672-444: 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. In 1998, TBS Superstation—which continued to run
54940-439: The provider, and permitted providers to deliver superstations to commercial businesses. 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. Although professional sports teams benefited heavily from their national exposure—especially with regards to WTCG/WTBS's carriage of
55208-434: The public," positing that they posed a serious threat to the ability of program producers to guarantee exclusive local rights to prospective stations seeking to buy programs being offered on the syndication market. ASN rebutted that KTTV had acknowledged the company was being authorized to redistribute its programming without distributor permission as the station could not do it on its own without shouldering liability. The issue
55476-425: The range of KWRB's off-air signal: Riverton, Lander and Thermopolis . The FCC's denial of Carter's license renewal—because of its refusal to guarantee KWRB program duplication protection and the harm it would induce to the station, especially given Carter's refusal to offer the KWRB signal—was affirmed in a unanimous, three-judge decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on May 24, 1963, and
55744-401: The reach of an independent station's signal that this was not an option. There were cable systems that carried three stations affiliated with each of the major commercial networks and three stations that were PBS member outlets (one station from within the home market and two stations from neighboring markets of each network). WTCG started to reach far beyond the Atlanta television market in
56012-408: The realignment and arguing it would dilute existing team rivalries. (The realignment proposal also sparked concerns that local advertising revenue for WGN's prime time newscast would be depressed by frequent post-9:00 p.m. [ Central Time ] delays during the regular season from an increased number of Cubs games involving Pacific Time Zone -based Western Division teams starting in the late evening in
56280-563: The reality show Ripley's Believe It or Not! and the short-lived comedy series The Chimp Channel (a series based on the "Monkey-ed Movies" series of interstitial shorts parodying recent and classic theatrical movies with chimpanzees, voiced by human actors, in the roles). By 2001, several sitcoms from the 1980s and 1990s such as Full House , Family Matters , The Cosby Show , The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , Friends , Seinfeld , and Home Improvement became part of TBS Superstation's schedule; many of these shows aired as part of
56548-399: 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. WTBS effectively limited the number of necessary blackouts or substitutions by licensing
56816-451: 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. 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
57084-428: The remaining systems reinstating WGN through 1999. The Bulls, WGN and the NBA reached a settlement on December 12, 1996, allowing WGN-TV to air the league broadcast maximum of 41 games for the remainder of the 1996–97 season (35 that would air only on the Chicago signal and twelve that would be shown on both the local and superstation feeds). From the 1997–98 season thereafter, the number of games permitted to air on
57352-616: The removal of those superstations. (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.) The WWOR EMI Service—despite having SyndEx-proofed its programming schedule—and WPIX would each see their distribution erode during
57620-419: The right to control the telecasts outside of its home market and informed EMI that the telecasts would be recorded upon transmission, effectively subjecting them to copyright by Doubleday; EMI contended that it was exempt from paying royalties for the telecasts under Section 111 (a) (3) of the Copyright Act, which contends that the secondary transmission of a program by an intermediary carrier did not infringe upon
57888-412: The rights to syndicated programming and film packages, leaving the network-affiliated stations in the market—WAGA-TV, NBC affiliate WSB-TV (channel 2, now an ABC affiliate) and ABC affiliate WXIA-TV (channel 11, now an NBC affiliate)—to acquire the stronger shows. But, because of programming commitments that the affiliates had to their networks, those stations only kept the shows for a few years at
58156-483: The same corporate umbrella as AT&T's telecommunications holdings, including satellite provider DirecTV . Time Warner shareholders approved the merger on February 15, 2017; however, on February 28, 2017, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that his agency will not review the deal, leaving the review to the U.S. Department of Justice . The merger also resulted in the full separation of TBS from former parent station WPCH (this time by ownership) in an effort to expedite
58424-416: The same program could be duplicated by superstations and other distant signals. On June 19, 1981, the three-judge New York Court of Appeals panel unanimously affirmed the distant signal and syndication exclusivity repeals; after multiple delays, the repeal of both regulations went into effect one week later on June 24. The U.S. Supreme Court also affirmed the repeal by declining a request by the NAB to review
58692-414: The same schedule nationally as that seen on the local Atlanta broadcast feed—were broadcast on an Eastern Time schedule (with programs shown at earlier or, for those viewing in the Atlantic Time Zone in far eastern Canada and the Maritimes , later times depending on the location), resulting in programs being shown simultaneously in all six continental U.S. and all five Canadian time zones as they did in
58960-438: 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
59228-488: The satellite feed's vertical blanking interval (VBI) during retransmissions of WGN's newscasts and other local programs in place of the teletext listings data that the station was relaying to United's Electronic Program Guide (EPG) service (later Prevue Guide and now the entertainment-based Pop ) in violation of the Copyright Act's passive carrier rules. In October 1981, District Court Judge Susan Getzendanner denied an injunction to WGN Continental Broadcasting and dismissed
59496-480: The schedule as other older shows such as The Three Stooges and Little Rascals shorts and Leave it to Beaver were dropped from the channel to make way for more sitcoms from the 1980s such as Three's Company , Who's the Boss? , Growing Pains , Family Ties , Mama's Family , and Saved by the Bell . Original animated programs such as Captain Planet and the Planeteers , 2 Stupid Dogs , and SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron were also added as part of
59764-422: The second "s" rendered in lower case). (Promotions for the channel's programming beginning at this time until 2004 often verbally referred to the national feed only as "the Superstation", a moniker that had previously been used in certain on-air promotions on an alternating basis or in conjunction with the WTBS/TBS name from its national launch as a superstation in December 1976 until December 1989). During this time,
60032-406: The show moved to TBS . Each episode was made by an independent production company with a National Geographic staffer serving as an associate producer. Local actor Bingo O'Malley was selected by Herculaneum: Voices from the Past producer Joe Seamans as host. Herculaneum was extended for broadcast on PBS in 1987 under the title, In the Shadow of Vesuvius". The show bounced between CNBC (which
60300-456: The shows seen on WTBS continued to air nationally over its superstation feed (in a move that preceded fellow superstations WGN-TV and WWOR-TV doing the same thing, though only after the FCC's re-implementation of the Syndication Exclusivity Rights rule in 1990). 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
60568-549: 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. The rules, which took effect on November 30 and also applied to satellite common carriers that uplinked and distributed
60836-480: The slogan "veryfunny." The semicircle element took on a motif with half a baseball or basketball rendered within it for Turner Sports programming. From October 1, 2004 to May 30, 2008, TBS had a block called "Too Funny to Sleep" that aired from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m., and aired Mr. Show with Bob and David along with reruns of some shows from Adult Swim , such as Family Guy , Futurama , Baby Blues , The Oblongs , and Mission Hill . The refocusing
61104-436: The small station into the first nationally distributed " superstation ." With the assignment of WTBS as the broadcast station's callsign in 1979, the national feed became known as SuperStation WTBS, and later SuperStation TBS, TBS Superstation, or simply TBS. The channel broadcast a variety of programming during this era, including films, syndicated series, and sports (including Atlanta Braves baseball, basketball games involving
61372-418: The split of the TBS national feed from the Atlanta station in October 2007. In addition to offering conventional television programming over the main video-audio feed viewable to all multichannel television subscribers receiving the channel, Southern Satellite Systems transmitted two teletext services over the TBS superstation feed's vertical blanking interval (VBI) that required a special decoder to receive
61640-451: The station itself had cable carriage throughout Colorado's Western Slope , Idaho , Kansas , Montana , Nebraska , New Mexico , South Dakota , Utah , Washington and Wyoming .) 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
61908-446: The station moved to new studio facilities a few blocks west at the former site of the Progressive Club, along with overflow offices on Williams Street, across Interstate 75/85, those facilities now house Adult Swim and Williams Street Productions. (It shared the ex-Progressive Club studios with CNN and Headline News until the latter two moved their operations into the CNN Center downtown in 1987). Early programming included movies from
62176-448: The station through other distribution methods (including microwave and MMDS services). 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 ) 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
62444-414: 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 service (from 1981 to 1993) to
62712-463: The station's over-the-air channel number were completely removed—outside of minor technical issues where local ads and promos aired erroneously on the national feed. The on-air look of the station by this time was heavily reliant on then state-of-the-art Quantel Paintbox graphics, with slick animation created by a team of in-house graphic designers, led by creative services director John Christopher Burns. He and others would develop this look further in
62980-400: The station's satellite retransmission rights from Southern Satellite Systems—uplinked the signal of WPIX to the Westar V satellite; 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
63248-541: The station's signal by microwave to begin transmitting the KTVT satellite feed. (United Video would later relocate KTVT's transponder to the Spacenet III in December 1988.) 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
63516-455: 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 Inc. 's UVTV satellite unit in April 2001 as
63784-549: The summer of 1988. On May 18, 1988, the FCC reinstated syndication exclusivity restrictions through the passage of a new version of the Syndication Exclusivity Rights Rule. This version granted cable systems and satellite carrier firms the ability to secure an agreement to air a claimed syndicated program with the claimant local rightsholder or a syndication distributor, effectively allowing for superstations to acquire national cable rights for syndicated programs (either directly or through their satellite carrier). In preparation for
64052-412: 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
64320-418: The superstations, gave satellite providers at least four months to implement duplication protections for network and syndicated programs and 60 days notice to comply with sports and programming blackout requests. An exemption to the Communications Act's retransmission consent statute in the SHVIA rules allowed satellite carriers to retransmit a superstation signal absent the station's prior written consent under
64588-834: The then dominant television networks – NBC , ABC, and CBS ; one or more public television stations – which usually were member stations of National Educational Television (NET) and its later successor, the Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS ); one or more UHF stations; and in the largest markets (such as New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago), at least one VHF station without a network affiliation. These independent stations generally relied on syndicated reruns of current or defunct network shows, classic theatrical feature films and some variety of local programming – such as news programs (ranging from as limited as hourly news updates to long-form newscasts, usually airing in prime time and, in some cases, at midday), children's programming or sporting events – to fill their broadcast schedules. Because of
64856-444: The time among independent stations that composed the superstation concept. These signals were also popular among C-band satellite subscribers in rural areas where broadcast signals could not be picked up off-air. Individual radio stations have also been redistributed via satellite as superstations through cable radio services offered by television providers and standalone satellite radio services. In other parts of North America,
65124-431: The time on satellite transmission. SSS initially charged prospective cable systems 10¢ per subscriber to transmit the WTCG signal as a 24-hour channel and 2¢ per subscriber to carry it as a part-time, overnight-only service (with the intent of acting as a timeshare feed on a cable channel otherwise occupied by a local or out-of-market broadcast station during their normal sign-off period). Instantly, WTCG went from being
65392-487: The time slot.) Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI, now defunct) cited the national restrictions on the Bulls as partly being behind its December 1996 decision to remove the WGN national feed from most of its systems throughout the country, affecting around 3.5 million TCI subscribers by March 1997, though criticism over the move led TCI to rescind its plans to remove the WGN national feed from affected systems in Illinois , Indiana , Iowa , Wisconsin and Michigan with
65660-566: 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 . 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 1 satellite. WTCG became America's first nationally distributed superstation on December 17, 1976, when its signal began to be relayed to four cable systems in
65928-458: The time was the largest media company in the world. 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. On December 17, 1996, when TBS celebrated its 20th anniversary as a national service, the channel reincorporated the "Superstation" moniker into its name, rebranding as " TBS Superstation " (this time with
66196-516: The time, whereas WWOR and WPIX each chipped in only $ 1 million, better reflecting their more regionalized distribution.). Concerns by many of Major League Baseball team owners that the share would be used to buoy the expansion of KTVT into a fourth national superstation (a move that would have had to be undertaken by United Video as it was the station's satellite redistributor), American League team owners voted down Gaylord Broadcasting President Edward L. Gaylord 's initial bid to purchase 33% of
66464-611: The top 20 media markets lacked independent stations running general entertainment programs, and largely only had access to television stations affiliated with ABC, NBC, and CBS, along with a non-commercial educational station. Cable providers in these areas carried network-affiliated commercial and non-commercial television stations from neighboring markets—usually to serve as default outlets where one or more networks were not available locally—and if possible, an independent station (often located anywhere between 60 and 200 miles [97 and 322 km] away). Still, many places were far enough out of
66732-420: The years that followed, eventually forming the design firm Television by Design to provide services to other television stations around the country (including WXIA-TV, rival independent WGNX [channel 46, now CBS affiliate WANF ] and PBS member station WPBA [channel 30, now WABE-TV ] within the Atlanta market). Burns would leave TVbD, but continued to be employed by Turner Broadcasting for other projects, including
67000-437: Was able to acquire retransmission rights at the national level (including local newscasts, sports and other WWOR-produced programming as well as special events, the station's overnight simulcast of the Shop at Home Network and a limited number of syndicated shows that did not have exclusivity claims in any market). Confusingly for WWOR's national cable viewers, on-air promotions for programs not contracted to air nationally over
67268-415: Was aimed at "phas[ing] out such superstations telecasts entirely in increments of five games each year over the next five years," a separate plan proposed by Stern that was never voted upon by NBA team owners. (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
67536-491: Was assigned as licensee of WJRJ-TV. The channel 17 transmitter was originally located at 1018 West Peachtree Street Northwest (it has since been relocated to the Atlanta suburb of North Druid Hills, Georgia ), with the antenna located on the Turner Broadcasting tower . The building at this site was once home to the studios of CBS affiliate WAGA-TV (channel 5, now a Fox owned-and-operated station ) and, later, channel 17, during its first three years as WJRJ-TV. By 1980,
67804-455: Was canceled by The Disney Channel in 1985. (TBS's addition of The New Leave It To Beaver to its lineup also coincided with the original Leave it to Beaver airing in reruns on the channel, as Ted Turner felt that the former would make a good programming fit with the latter.) On September 7, 1987, the "W" from the "WTBS" callsign was dropped from the superstation's on-air branding—changing its name to SuperStation TBS —in order to emphasize
68072-531: Was carried by 95 cable systems in six Southeastern states, reaching an estimated 440,000 households). 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
68340-475: Was converted by Turner into a conventional basic cable network, at which time it began to be carried within the Atlanta market on area cable providers alongside its existing local carriage on satellite providers DirecTV and Dish Network . The former parent station in Atlanta was concurrently relaunched as WPCH-TV (branded as "Peachtree TV", which Turner sold to the Meredith Corporation in 2017, and later acquired by Gray Television in 2021) and reformatted as
68608-599: Was divested by AT&T and merged with Discovery Inc. to form Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). 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. At this point, TBS only had three original scripted series still airing first-run episodes, American Dad! , Chad (which itself would be dropped by WBD before its already-filmed second season made it to air; it would later be picked up by streaming service The Roku Channel ), and Miracle Workers . On May 11, Brett Weitz
68876-434: Was fighting an FCC grant allowing ASN Inc. (which also had been given permission to uplink WGN-TV and WOR-TV) to make KTTV an "involuntary superstation," claiming such retransmission would be a violation of a provision of Section 325 of the Communications Act that prohibited signal retransmission without a broadcaster's express consent, even though Section 111 of the 1976 Copyright Act effectively allowed such importation – asked
69144-546: Was finalized four days later on April 21, 2017). On November 20, 2017, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against AT&T and Time Warner in an attempt to block the merger, citing antitrust concerns surrounding the transaction. The proposed merger—which had already been approved by the European Commission and Mexican, Chilean and Brazilian regulatory authorities—was affirmed by court ruling on June 12, 2018, after District of Columbia U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ruled in favor of AT&T, dismissing
69412-518: Was intended to position its programming as a direct contrast to sister channel TNT, which had initially focused mainly around older movies and sports but moved toward and now focuses primarily on drama series and films. From April 19, 2013 to February 20, 2015, Turner began to utilize an outside-sourced four-hour block of programming on TBS late Friday nights without the "Too Funny to Sleep" branding, including Family Guy , The Oblongs , The Cleveland Show , and American Dad! . In late June 2007,
69680-575: 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.) 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,
69948-403: Was never fully settled, however, as ASN Inc. ceased operations amid financial issues before it could be able to retransmit KTTV's signal. The FCC repealed its remaining cable television regulations in a 4–3 vote on July 22, 1980, eliminating its restrictions on the number of broadcast stations that cable systems could carry and syndication exclusivity protections for local television stations on
70216-429: Was removed as general manager for TBS, TNT, and TruTV; the channels are now overseen by Kathleen Finch as head of U.S. Networks. As of December 2023, TBS currently airs a mix of game shows and reality shows and reruns of live-action sitcoms that were originally broadcast on the major broadcast networks. The remaining original scripted first-run program currently seen on TBS is American Dad! , which also airs on and
70484-408: Was selected for its broadcasts of Los Angeles Clippers basketball and 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 TEMPO Enterprises . Both superstations were notable for being
70752-469: Was subject to interruptions in the fall and late spring/early summer due to World Series and NBA Finals postgames from NBC Sports), then MSNBC and finally National Geographic Channel. In April 2010, the show celebrated its 25 year with a special, "Explorer: 25 Years". Episode list starting with the change in title to simply Explorer TBS (American TV channel) TBS (originally an initialism of Turner Broadcasting System ), stylized as tbs ,
71020-458: 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 payments from cable systems for programs to which it held
71288-503: 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. Also setting WTCG apart from other superstations that would soon follow in its footsteps
71556-444: Was the only Procter & Gamble serial to be produced for cable television), and sitcoms Down to Earth , Rocky Road , and Safe at Home (all three of which were produced by The Arthur Company , and formed a block of first-run comedy series aimed at a family audience). In addition, from 1986 through 1989, TBS also produced more than 70 original episodes of The New Leave It To Beaver , which it picked up after that series
71824-429: 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
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