Former television broadcaster
USA Broadcasting
was an
American
television broadcasting company owned by the veteran
entertainment industry
executive
Barry Diller
. This company was the over-the-air broadcasting arm of
USA Networks
. Before founding USA Broadcasting, Diller was a helper in
Gulf+Western
's failed
Paramount Television Service
and News Corporation's new
Fox Broadcasting Company
that was launched on October 9, 1986.
History
[
edit
]
USAB dates back on in 1995 when Diller purchased Silver King Broadcasting from
Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson
and
Roy Speer
. Paxson and Speer had previously assembled the group to expand Home Shopping Network onto broadcast television. However, the Home Shopping Network split from Silver King Broadcasting in 1992 and not return until after Diller gained ownership of the company. Under an agreement which was made in August 1996, both Silver King Broadcasting and the Home Shopping Network would merge their stations.
[1]
[2]
[3]
The stations carried the Home Shopping Club (now
America's Store
). Home Shopping Network, Inc. later brought
Universal
's television units from
Seagram
, renaming them USA Networks, Inc., and its broadcast television subsidiary USA Broadcasting in 1998.
Diller planned to remove shopping shows and infomercials from most of the stations' broadcast days and replace them with local and
syndicated
programs, including a few produced by sister production unit
Studios USA Television
that also aired nationally on USA Network. He wanted to tie each of the stations very closely to the communities they served, and to open up opportunities for locally produced programs. This format was dubbed "CityVision", and took heavy influence from the format used by
CITY-TV
in
Toronto
(and more prominently, that station's sister broadcast television properties that became charter stations of
Citytv
, when
CHUM Limited
expanded the format to other
Canadian
markets as a
television system
in 2002, and similar to USA's sale of its stations to Univision, suffered a similar fate when CHUM agreed to merge with CTVglobemedia (now
Bell Media
), owner of the
CTV Television Network
).
By 2000, four stations were transformed into Diller's new model:
WAMI-TV
(WAMI "Whammy" 69) in
Miami
,
WHOT
("Hotlanta 34") in
Atlanta
,
WHUB
("Hub" 66) in
Boston
, and
KSTR
("K-Star" 49) in the
Dallas
-
Fort Worth
area. WAMI and KSTR aired local
news
,
talk shows
and
sporting events
. WHOT and WHUB broadcast syndicated programming as well as local sports. WAMI broadcast
Miami Heat
basketball
and
Florida Marlins
baseball
games. WHOT and KSTR also carried professional basketball games of, respectively, the
Atlanta Hawks
and
Dallas Mavericks
. WHUB acquired the rights to the annual
Beanpot
hockey
tournament between four of Boston's colleges and also rights to Boston University's men's ice hockey games. HSC/America's Store continues to broadcast late at night and on weekends.
Financial issues and shutdown
[
edit
]
There were also plans to convert stations in
Newark
and its Satellite in
Smithtown
(proposed callsign: WORX, "The Works"),
Los Angeles
(proposed callsign: KLIK, "Click"),
Chicago
(proposed callsign: WNDE, "Windy") and
Atlantic City
/
Philiadelphia
(proposed callsign: WACY, "Wacky", or an equivalent, as that callsign was
already in use
), to the new local-TV model. However, due to financial troubles in 2000, USAB had scrapped those plans and reduced programming on its existing independent stations. In the summer of 2000, Diller suddenly put the entire station roster up for sale.
Disney
/
ABC
and
Univision
were the companies in the running to buy the stations, but Univision outbid Disney in a close race. On May 21, 2001, Univision purchased the stations and converted them into
Spanish language
outlets. Some affiliated with Univision, but most joined its new sister network,
Telefutura
(renamed UniMas in 2013), which was launched on January 14, 2002.
USA Networks eventually exited the television market by selling USA Network to Vivendi Universal Entertainment, a subsidiary of
Vivendi Universal SA
that owns
Universal Studios
, also in 2001, which in May 2004, sold Vivendi Universal's entertainment assets (excluding
Universal Music Group
) to
General Electric
, which later transferred its
NBC
(including another Spanish-language network
Telemundo
) assets to
Vivendi Universal Entertainment
, and later renamed it
NBCUniversal
; this marked USA Networks' slight return to the broadcast industry as NBCU owns the flagship NBC network, and NBCU owns its
own NBC and Telemundo stations
. NBCUniversal is now owned by
Comcast
, after the latter half-acquired the percent of the company in 2011, and fully acquired it in 2013.
Other stations
[
edit
]
Silver King/USA Broadcasting briefly owned four
Fox
affiliate stations, formerly owned by
SF Broadcasting
:
WLUK
(
Green Bay, Wisconsin
),
KHON
(
Honolulu, Hawaii
),
WALA
(
Mobile, Alabama
), and
WVUE
(
New Orleans, Louisiana
). That ownership was between from November 27, 1995, until April 1, 1998, before the four stations were sold to
Emmis Communications
. Emmis eventually departed from television ownership and resold the stations to other parties, including
LIN TV Corporation
and in WVUE's case, a group led by the owner of the
New Orleans Saints
,
Tom Benson
in 2008.
Stations owned by USA Broadcasting
[
edit
]
City of license
/
Market
|
Station
|
Channel
|
Current status
|
New York, NY
|
WHSI-TV
|
67
|
True Crime Network
affiliate
WFTY-DT
|
WHSE-TV
|
68
|
UniMas owned-and-operated (
O&O
)
WFUT-DT
|
Los Angeles, CA
|
KHSC-TV
|
46
|
UniMas owned-and-operated (O&O)
KFTR-DT
|
Chicago, IL
|
WEHS-TV
|
60
|
UniMas owned-and-operated (O&O)
WXFT-DT
|
Philadelphia, PA
|
WHSP-TV
|
65
|
Univision owned-and-operated (O&O)
WUVP-DT
|
Boston, MA
|
WHSH-TV/WHUB-TV
|
66
|
UniMas affiliate
WUTF-TV
, owned by
Entravision Communications
|
San Francisco
?
Oakland, CA
|
KPST-TV
|
66
|
UniMas owned-and-operated (O&O)
KFSF-DT
|
Dallas
?
Fort Worth, TX
|
KHSX-TV/KSTR-TV
|
49
|
UniMas owned-and-operated (O&O)
KSTR-DT
|
Atlanta, GA
|
WNGM-TV/WHOT-TV
|
34
|
Univision owned-and-operated (O&O)
WUVG-DT
|
Houston, TX
|
KHSH-TV
|
61
|
UniMas owned-and-operated (O&O)
KFTH-DT
|
Tampa
?
St. Petersburg, FL
|
WBHS-TV
|
50
|
Religious independent
WFTT-TV
, owned by Entravision Communications
|
Cleveland, OH
|
WQHS-TV
|
61
|
Univision owned-and-operated (O&O)
WQHS-TV
|
Miami
?
Fort Lauderdale, FL
|
WYHS-TV/WAMI-TV
|
69
|
UniMas owned-and-operated (O&O)
WAMI-DT
|
Melbourne
?
Orlando, FL
|
WBSF
|
43
|
Grit
affiliate
WOTF-TV
, owned by Entravision Communications
|
References
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]