WWOR USA

WWOR USA is a New York City–based American cable television channel that operates as a superstation feed of Secaucus, New Jersey–licensed WWOR-TV (channel 9). The service is uplinked to satellite from the Fox Television Center (WNYW studios) in New York City by owner Fox Television Stations, Inc.

In the New York metropolitan area, the superstation feed is not available on local cable providers, but is available to subscribers of Dish and DirecTV. The only exception to this took place on February 26, 1993 after the World Trade Center bombing, when the local WWOR's transmitter was knocked out for the day. Cable providers in the New York metro area used the superstation feed as a substitute until the transmitter returned to service.

History

1965 to January 1990

In 1965, Eastern Microwave began relaying the signal of WOR-TV (channel 9) in New York City via microwave to cable providers located in markets immediately surrounding the New York City metropolitan area, reaching as far west as Buffalo, New York and as far south as Delaware, as well as throughout New England. In April 1979, Eastern began to uplink the signal for satellite and cable subscribers throughout the United States, joining WGN-TV in Chicago and WTBS (now WPCH-TV) in Atlanta as a national superstation. For the eleven years that followed, cable viewers throughout the United States saw the same exact signal that the New York City market saw.

Arrival of SyndEx

In 1989, the Federal Communications Commission passed the "Syndication Exclusivity Rights rule" (or "SyndEx") into law. This law meant that whenever a local television station had the exclusive rights to broadcast a syndicated program, that particular program must be blacked out on any out-of-market stations that were carried by local cable providers. After the law was passed, EMI purchased the rights to programs that no stations had claimed exclusive rights to, and launched a special national feed for cable and satellite subscribers outside of the New York City market on January 1, 1990, called the "WWOR EMI Service". Most of the syndicated programs that WWOR-TV had the rights to show in the New York City market were covered up by the alternate programming shown on the national feed – with the exception of sporting events, local newscasts and other WWOR-produced programming such as Steampipe Alley, The Joe Franklin Show, the overnight Shop at Home program, the annual United Cerebral Palsy Telethon, the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and a select number of programs that were not claimed as exclusive to any market. Most of the programs came from the libraries of Universal Television (whose parent company, MCA Inc., owned WWOR-TV at the time of the EMI Service's founding), MGM Television and Quinn Martin, along with some shows from the Christian Science Monitor's television service, as well as some holdover shows that had aired on the local New York feed before the SyndEx law's passage. This caused confusion among WWOR's cable viewers outside of the New York metropolitan area, as promotions during time periods in which the national feed was simulcasting WWOR's New York signal were left unaltered, leaving in promos for shows that were not airing on the national feed due to the SyndEx law.

When channel 9 became a UPN affiliate in 1995, the WWOR EMI Service also covered up the network's shows, due to Paramount (although the network's sole owner-turned-half owner Chris-Craft owned the station) using syndication exclusivity to keep UPN's shows off the national WWOR feed – in contrast, rival superstation WGN carried programming from The WB Television Network on its national feed until nationwide terrestrial coverage was deemed sufficient to discontinue its carriage over the national WGN feed in October 1999. As a result of the syndication exclusivity claims by UPN, if New York City viewers of WWOR saw Star Trek: Voyager, cable viewers throughout the rest of the country saw Hazel reruns in the same timeslot.

In mid-1996, EMI sold the satellite distribution rights to WWOR and Boston's WSBK-TV to Advance Entertainment Corporation. On September 18, 2001, AEC sold the satellite distribution rights to the feed to Fox Television Stations, Inc, ironically on the same day Fox purchased the local WWOR feed in Secaucus, NJ. Fox then overhauled the feed. The simulcasting of the New York feed ended, with national commercials airing during shows that aired on both feeds simultaneously, similar to how WTBS and WGN had always operated their superstation feeds. Fox then purchased full signal rights to UPN programming, placing the netlet on the national feed for the first time. Fox would rebrand the feed as "Superstation WWOR." When the local feed picked up New York Yankees baseball, the games also aired on the superstation. When UPN and The WB merged to form The CW, WPIX became the New York market's feed for the new network. Fox would announce MyNetworkTV in February. MyNetworkTV airs on the superstation feed to fill holes in markets that do not have an affiliate. In 2010, the feed was rebranded again, to the current WWOR USA branding. Fox increased WWOR's full signal rights to shows that are airing on the New York feed, with 50% of the station's programs cleared to air on WWOR USA. Promos for WWOR-TV shows covered up on the national feed no longer appear on the superstation.