WGN America was an American subscription television network that operated from November 9th 1978 to February 28th 2021. The service was originally uplinked to satellite by United Video Inc. as a national feed of Chicago independent station WGN-TV, making the station's programming available to cable and satellite providers throughout the United States as the second nationally distributed "superstation" (after Atlanta station WTCG, now operating as the cable-originated TBS, which had become a national service almost two years earlier).
It maintained a nearly identical program schedule as the Chicago station, airing a variety of programming including films, syndicated series, programs intended for local broadcast in the Chicago market (including local newscasts, public affairs shows and children's programs), and sports (including Chicago Cubs and White Sox baseball, Chicago Bulls basketball, and regional collegiate events). By the 1990s, the WGN superstation feed began substituting some syndicated programs (and starting in 1996, selected sporting events) in accordance with syndication exclusivity rules implemented by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in January 1990 to reduce programming duplication between local and out-of-market television stations carried by local cable systems, and served as the national carrier of The WB (part-owned by WGN-TV founding owner Tribune Broadcasting, which would acquire the national feed from United Video in 2001) during the latter half of the decade.
