Superstation

For the UK radio overnight sustaining service see The Superstation. For the Orcadian commercial radio station see The Superstation Orkney.

Superstation is a term used in North American broadcasting that can have several meanings. In its most precise meaning, a superstation is defined by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States as a "television broadcast station, other than a network station, licensed by the FCC that is secondarily transmitted by a satellite carrier."^[1]

United States

Early superstations

In the early days of broadcasting, most large media markets had, by standards of the day, a large number of television stations. Generally, these markets had three VHF stations affiliated with NBC, ABC, and CBS (the then dominant television networks), one or more public television stations (which usually were member stations of PBS), and several UHF stations without network affiliation. These independent stations relied on syndicated reruns, older movies, and local programming such as newscasts, children's programming or sporting events to fill their broadcast days. Smaller media markets, however, often had only the basic three network-affiliated stations. Cable television providers in smaller areas sought a foothold by "importing" signals from the city for their customers. The stations, anxious for more viewers, assisted by relaying their signals by wire or microwave signals to these towns. These stations, especially those independents owned by Gaylord Broadcasting such as Milwaukee's WVTV (channel 18), KSTW (channel 11) in Seattle, KTVT (channel 11) from Fort Worth-Dallas and Houston's KHTV (channel 39), which all served their respective states with entertainment programming via these connections, became the first "superstations", on a regional basis.

WTCG: The first national superstation

With the advent of C-Band satellites, Ted Turner came up with the idea of distributing his Atlanta, Georgia station WTCG (channel 17; later renamed WTBS, and now WPCH-TV) via C-Band to the entire country (and beyond). This was the first national superstation, and his idea was soon copied by companies who applied for satellite uplinks to distribute other stations, including WGN-TV (channel 9) in Chicago, Illinois.

One key legal point is that Ted Turner's contracts with content providers charged him for content as if his station were reaching only a local market. No one had thought of adding contract language to deal with satellite broadcast to a much larger market. This terrestrial loophole was eventually closed, so other local stations that could get a satellite spot were charged appropriately.

Conflicts

This eventually caused conflict between these stations and providers of similar, or identical, programming in local markets. Eventually TBS, the successor to WTCG, gave up its status as a superstation and became a regular cable television channel (outside of Atlanta). The FCC placed tight restrictions on the remaining superstations (excluding WGN America), allowing no new ones and limiting the distribution of the five grandfathered stations to rural areas without distributors of similar programming. Many of the intrastate superstations eventually let their carriage on out-of-market cable providers expire due to contractual restrictions resulting from them becoming affiliated with UPN and The WB, or becoming affiliates of the Big Four networks after network shuffles in their markets.

The remaining "true" superstations

In addition to WGN-TV, the five remaining true superstations, MyNetworkTV affiliates WSBK-TV (channel 38) in Boston, Massachusetts and WWOR-TV (channel 9) in Secaucus, New Jersey (part of the New York metropolitan area), and CW affiliates WPIX (channel 11) in New York City, KWGN-TV (channel 2) in Denver, Colorado and KTLA (channel 5) in Los Angeles, California are carried on some rural cable providers, and on the Dish Network direct broadcast satellite service. But syndication exclusivity blackout requests have led Dish Network to stop selling one or more of the stations in some markets. As of September 19, 2013, Dish stopped selling Superstations outside of their home markets, only limiting them to those who were already subscribed to them at that point.

TBS Superstation is now simply known as TBS and WTBS is now known as WPCH-TV and only available in and near the Atlanta market. WGN formerly billed itself as "Superstation WGN," but changed its name to "WGN America" in May 2008. While the FCC defines "superstation" as a term, it does not prohibit its use by others such as KYUR (channel 13) in Anchorage, Alaska, which are affiliates of ABC and The CW that have a network of repeater stations in other parts of that state and call themselves "The Alaska SuperStation". Some Spanish language networks like Telemundo and Univision may only have one station in an entire state serving the largest city in their market distributed statewide by cable providers; this is the case for Milwaukee Telemundo affiliate WYTU-LD, which sees statewide distribution via Wisconsin's major cable providers, Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable, along with extended coverage on stations in Rockford, Illinois and South Bend, Indiana, giving it coverage resembling a regional superstation, but not marketed as such. The term is used by many other television and radio stations, but none of these operations is a superstation as defined by the FCC.

Canada

Canada does not have any television stations that operate as "superstations" in the official sense of the term. Technically, almost every station in Canada is a superstation, as almost all local television stations in that country are carried nationally by one or both satellite providers (Bell TV and Shaw Direct), and any of these stations can be carried by any Canadian cable provider, at least on digital cable. The closest Canadian equivalent to the "superstation" model is an independent station (the number of which had grown to some extent with the 2009 demise of E!), and to some extent the television system. Moreover, Canadian providers are able to distribute American television stations in their digital package, regardless of whether or not they are licensed superstations.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Canadian Satellite Communications began distributing CHAN-TV (channel 8) from Vancouver, British Columbia, CITV-TV (channel 13) from Edmonton, Alberta, and CHCH-TV (channel 11) from Hamilton, Ontario, primarily for distribution by smaller cable systems throughout Canada. Coincidentally, these stations were, like Cancom, owned (or later acquired) by Western International Communications. As a result of their early availability, which predated most Canadian specialty channels, these stations (the first two now owned by Shaw Media, the latter by Channel Zero) continue to have a superstation-type status on analog cable in many smaller Canadian communities, and in the United States along border-area cable systems (such as Buffalo/Niagara Falls, New York, Burlington, Vermont and Bellingham, Washington).

Presently, both the aforementioned CHCH and CJON-TV (channel 21) in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador use slogans referring to each as a "superstation" (the stations have no corporate affiliation). However, once again, neither station has any special regulatory status at present conferring that title.

Canadian subscribers to premium movie channels The Movie Network and/or The Movie Network Encore, Movie Central or Super Channel also receive several major U.S. superstations like KTLA and WPIX, depending on their cable provider. TBS was removed from the Canadian market when it became a cable-only channel in the U.S., as this would have required approval by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to be carried on Canadian cable providers. However, it has been replaced with WPCH-TV, the former Atlanta feed of TBS.

Mexico

Much like Canada, Mexico has almost all its television stations available on satellite and carried on select Mexican cable providers. And just like Canada, Mexican providers can obtain American television stations in their digital package, even if they are not licensed superstations.

Radio superstations

Radio stations in North America are permitted to uplink to satellite. Nashville, Tennessee's WSM received a lot of attention in the 1980s as it was delivered via C-band alongside The Nashville Network. Very few stations actually distribute themselves through C-band, as there is not much reason to do so and the station's audio can be dialed in through either ISDN lines, or listened to via an audio stream over the internet (if the station offers such). Ones that do, like Boston's WEEI, often do so to feed their station to others which simulcast it. This is the case with several stations in Mexico, as radio in Mexico is very nationalized and most local stations are merely 24-hour-a-day affiliates of a national network.

Some local radio stations are, or have been distributed on satellite radio throughout the United States, and Canada in select cases. Stations once distributed on satellite radio include WLTW New York City, KHMX Houston, KIIS-FM Los Angeles, KNEW San Francisco, WTKS-FM Orlando, WLW Cincinnati and WSIX-FM Nashville on XM Satellite Radio, and WSM Nashville on Sirius Satellite Radio. XM, in particular, used superstations owned by Clear Channel Communications for much of its early programming, and still had two superstations from Clear Channel as recently as late 2008 (talk radio station WLW and country music station WSIX); both of those have been dropped as of March 2009. WSIX, KIIS and WLTW returned to the now-merged Sirius XM lineup in June 2011, along with new additions WHTZ New York City and WGCI Chicago.

Two other stations, both of them specialty stations, are currently distributed on satellite radio; these are Bloomberg Radio affiliate WBBR in New York City and C-SPAN Radio station WCSP-FM in Washington D.C. Most of WBBR's programming is also syndicated terrestrially to other stations through United Stations Radio Networks; as of 2011, it is the only terrestrial superstation (KPIG-FM ended its terrestrial syndication deal with Dial Global in 2010).

CBS Radio has begun using HD Radio technology to introduce its major market stations to other markets. For instance, KFRG in San Bernardino is carried on KTWV-HD3 in Los Angeles, KSCF in San Diego is heard on KAMP-HD2 in Los Angeles, WBZ-FM in Boston is heard on WTIC-HD3 in Hartford, KROQ-FM in Los Angeles is heard on KSCF-HD2 in San Diego and an affiliate in New York City which is yet to be determined (likely current K-Rock WXRK-HD2), and WFAN in New York City is simulcast on three affiliates in Florida (WOCL-HD3 in Orlando, WLLD-HD3 in Tampa Bay, and WEAT-HD3 in West Palm Beach).

In many of these cases where stations are distributed outside of their market area, some concessions are made, such as the original local advertising being replaced with either national advertising or a bed of production music which plays over commercial breaks. Also in the example of WFAN, that station's play-by-play coverage of the Mets, Giants, Devils and Nets is not carried on the Florida HD Radio affiliates and replaced with alternate programming, as the station only has rights to broadcast the programming in the New York metro area.

List of superstations

Current

Former

Notes