Superstation

Common card · No. 479132

In North American broadcasting, a superstation is a terrestrial television station that has its broadcast range extended outside of their originating media market via communications satellite to multichannel television providers, including cable and direct broadcast satellite. These stations, which had no network affiliation and operated as independents, were popularized from the late 1970s to the early 1990s with offerings of reruns, movies, local play-by-play sports coverage and, in some cases, local newscasts. These signals were also popular among C-band satellite subscribers in rural areas where broadcast signals could not be picked up off-air. Superstation is defined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as a television station that is additionally transmitted via satellite. Further legislation, in particular the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999, narrowed this definition further to specify the station must not have a network affiliation. Superstations either have...

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