WGN No More?

[MrSheps]

I had no idea that "superstation" was a meaningful designation and not merely a term of art.

Yeah, it has FCC rules attached.  But at the same time they allow it to be used as a marketing term as well.  There aren't a lot of actual superstations left, the only one I know of off hand is KTLA because I happen to be in LA.  Tribune also owns it.  I'm sure there's a list somewhere, and I would bet Tribune owns a few of them.

 

 

I'm still confused. What changes officially marked the end the superstation? Local WGN and WGN America stopped airing any of the same programming aside from sports and nightly news back in the early 2000's, so I think this superstation designation was bullshit to begin with.

Well, in short, or kind of short, and I warn you, it's boring...  The two channels/feeds likely started as a result of issues with syndicated programing blackouts.  This was like late 80s, early 90s, when the FCC put in some new rules.  If you were a true superstation by earliest definition (local station over the air in a specific market, being rebroadcasted outside the market on sat or cable) and say you bought and were showing reruns of Gunsmoke or a first run syndicated show like a daytime talk show, and someone else in the DMA where you were being carried via cable was showing the same syndicated program and had exclusive rights for their DMA, your feed would be blacked out.  By splitting into to 2 feeds, one with over the air, one totally not, you avoid these blackout rules with the totally not feed. 

 

The changes in the last couple of years are about WGN going to a basic cable designation (specifically expanded basic I'd guess) that allows them to receive fees directly from cable and satellite companies for carrying the channel via carriage agreements. This is known as being "re-transmission consent".  Before the change in designation a year back or so they didn't get fees directly through carriage agreements, the sat or cable companies would pay royalties fees to the US copyright office, not Tribune, and WGN/Tribune would rely on ads.  Now they can get money for both ads and carriage fees. Disagreements over the cost to carry is likely what has led to the current blackout on Dish I'd imagine. (I haven't looked into it, but that's always the reason.)  To get to the basic cable designation, you typically need no cross programming between networks and a certain amount of original scripted programming, as opposed to just syndicated. When exactly the two WGNs had totally separate programming I don't know, but I bet it was more recent, and I would guess baseball would be part of that.  The increase in original scripted programing we're seeing now.  Or perhaps not seeing, no clue what the ratings are like.