Fiktiv USA - WGN America

WGN America is an American subscription television network that is owned by the Nexstar Media Group, and is the company's only wholly owned, national cable-originated television channel. Nexstar also holds a 31% interest in TV Food Network, LLC, the Discovery, Inc.-controlled parent of Food Network and Cooking Channel. The channel runs a mixture of recent and older comedy and drama series (including some first-run programs licensed for broadcast on the channel) and theatrical feature films, along with some local programming supplied by WGN-TV/Chicago.

WGN America was originally established on November 9, 1978, when United Video Inc. began redistributing the signal of WGN-TV (channel 9) in Chicago, Illinois—which, alongside WGN America, Chicago-based local cable news channel Chicagoland Television (CLTV) and news/talk/sports radio station WGN (720 AM), was among the flagship broadcasting properties of Tribune Media (formerly known as the Tribune Company prior to the August 2014 spin-off of its publishing division) until the closure of Nexstar's acquisition of Tribune in September 2019—to cable and satellite subscribers throughout the United States. This expanded the prominent independent station into America's second satellite-distributed national "superstation," after the concept's progenitor, Atlanta, Georgia-based WTBS (now separately operating as WPCH-TV in the Atlanta market and as conventional subscription channel TBS nationwide).

As the national feed of WGN-TV, the channel broadcast a variety of programming seen on the Chicago signal, including sports (mainly Chicago Cubs and White Sox baseball, and Chicago Bulls basketball games); locally originated news, children's, religious and public affairs programs; movies; and syndicated series. The WGN local and national feeds originally maintained nearly identical program schedules, aside from some sporting events that were restricted to the Chicago-area signal under league policy restrictions. In the years following the January 1990 re-imposition of federal syndication exclusivity regulations, programming between the two feeds increasingly deviated as the WGN national feed incorporated alternative syndicated programming to replace shows on the WGN-TV schedule that were subjected to market exclusivity claims by individual television stations and some local programs that the national feed chose not to clear (particularly from the late 2000s onward, as the WGN Chicago signal began expanding its local news programming and added lifestyle programs to its schedule). On December 14, 2014, WGN America was converted by Tribune into a conventional basic cable network, at which time it started to be offered on cable providers within the Chicago market alongside its existing local carriage on satellite providers DirecTV and Dish Network. The former parent station, WGN-TV, maintains a separate schedule of local and syndicated programs exclusively catering to the Chicago market.

As of September 2018, WGN America was received by approximately 80 million households that subscribe to a pay television service throughout the United States (or 62.7% of households with at least one television set).

On October 26, 1978, one day after the agency implemented an "open entry" policy for transponder resale carriers to feed distant television station signals to cable television systems, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted authority to four common carrier satellite relay firms – Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Southern Satellite Systems and United Video Inc. (later United Video Satellite Group), Lansing, Michigan-based American Microwave & Communications and Milwaukee-based Midwestern Relay Company – to uplink the WGN-TV signal to satellite to cable television providers serving various locations throughout the 48 contiguous U.S. states. Southern Satellite Systems – founded in 1975 by Ted Turner and subsequently sold to former Western Union marketing executive Edward L. Taylor to comply with FCC rules prohibiting a common satellite carrier from having involvement in program origination – was the leading contender to uplink the WGN signal for availability to a nationwide audience, intending to make it the second independent station that the company distributed via satellite, after Turner's Atlanta, Georgia independent station WTCG (soon WTBS), which SSS began redistributing to American cable and satellite systems in December 1976. However, in a memo released to provider clients on October 30, 1978, Taylor announced that Transponder 13 of Satcom 1 (which SSS had assigned to beam the signal to participating providers) had failed and that the communications satellite's operator, RCA American Communications, had refused a request to assign it a new transponder unless Satellite Communications Systems (a joint venture between SSS and Holiday Inn) agreed to dismiss a lawsuit it filed against RCA on October 16 over retaining use of Satcom Transponder 18 after January 1, 1979.

On November 9, 1978, United Video Inc. – which stepped in to oversee uplink responsibilities in lieu of Southern Satellite Systems – uplinked the WGN-TV signal from a satellite relay facility in Monee, Illinois to the Satcom-3 communications satellite for redistribution to cable systems and C-band satellite providers throughout the United States. This resulted in WGN-TV joining the ranks of WTBS to become America's second national superstation and becoming the first of three independent stations to be redistributed on a national basis before the end of 1979: KTVU (now a Fox owned-and-operated station) in Oakland, California was uplinked by Satellite Communications Systems in December 1978 and WOR-TV (now MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station WWOR-TV) in New York City was uplinked by Newhouse Newspapers subsidiary Eastern Microwave Inc. in April 1979. It was also the first Tribune-owned independent station to be distributed to a national pay television audience—United Video would later uplink WPIX (now a CW affiliate) in New York City in May 1984; Netlink began distributing KWGN-TV (now a CW affiliate) in Denver in October 1987; and Eastern Microwave began distributing KTLA (now a CW affiliate) in Los Angeles in February 1988—and the first superstation to be distributed by United Video—with WGN and WPIX being joined by Gaylord Broadcasting-owned KTVT (now a CBS owned-and-operated station) in Dallas–Fort Worth in July 1984 and, after it assumed retransmission rights from Eastern Microwave, KTLA in April 1988. (WPIX, KTLA and KWGN have primarily been distributed within their respective regions of the United States, although all were intended for national distribution; Dish Network made all three available nationally for those who subscribed to the provider's a la carte superstations tier prior to its decision to halt its sale to new subscribers in September 2013, while Netlink originally distributed KWGN as part of its "Denver 5" out-of-market package for C-band and 4DTV subscribers.)

By the end of its first week of national availability, the WGN-TV signal had become available to approximately 200 additional cable television systems nationwide, reaching an approximately estimated 800,000 subscribers. That cable reach would grow over the next several years: the first heaviest concentrations developed in the Central United States (where WGN's telecasts of Chicago Cubs baseball, Chicago Bulls basketball and The Bozo Show became highly popular) and gradually expanded to encompass most of the nation by the mid-1980s. United Video initially charged prospective cable systems 10¢ per subscriber to receive the WGN-TV signal, the same rate Southern Satellite Systems charged for 24-hour-a-day retransmission of WTBS. WGN Continental Broadcasting and station management originally treated WGN-TV as a "passive" superstation, asserting a neutral position over United Video's national retransmission of its signal and holding no oversight over national promotion of the WGN signal. (This was in contrast to WTBS, which handled nationalized promotional responsibilities rather than leaving those duties to its satellite carrier, as WGN had done.) This allowed WGN Continental/Tribune Broadcasting to continue paying for syndicated programming and advertising at local rates rather than those comparable to other national networks. Tribune was also not directly compensated by United Video for their retransmission or promotion of WGN's signal; though under compulsory license provisions applying to out-of-market stations through the Copyright Act of 1976 (further defined through the formation of the Copyright Royalty Tribunal in 1982), WGN-TV did receive royalty payments made by cable and satellite systems retransmitting the national WGN feed to the United States Copyright Office for retransmission of any copyrighted programming over which it held ownership (including news, public affairs, children's and sports programs).

Since United Video did not seek the Tribune Company's permission to relay the WGN-TV signal, for many years, WGN and United Video's relationship was described as being "not particularly friendly," going as far as Tribune even attempting legal challenges to stop retransmission of its signal, even though a Copyright Act exemption clause regarding "passive" carriers in the compulsory license statute of Section 111 effectively defined that satellite carriers were not required to seek direct the express permission of a television station or its licensee (such as WGN-TV/WGN Continental Broadcasting) to redistribute out-of-market broadcast signals. Publicly, Daniel T. Pecaro, president of WGN-TV at the time, opined that the station was "very honored [it was] selected" by United Video and the three other carriers granted redistribution but noted that the station would "continue to serve our Chicagoland communities." For about eleven years afterward, the national WGN-TV signal carried the same programming schedule as that seen in the Chicago area, except in instances where Chicago Bulls basketball games were prohibited from airing on the national feed due to NBA restrictions on superstation broadcasts. The national feed also used the same on-air branding as the Chicago area signal (which was referred to on-air at the time as either "Channel 9" or "WGN Channel 9") until 1997, when it became known as simply "WGN" outside Chicago (although it retained the varied forms of the WGN logo wordmark until 2008); in print and off-air promotional advertisements, however, United Video marketed the service as "WGN, The Chicago SuperChannel" (from 1982 to 1987) and later, on an alternative basis, "WGN/UV" (from 1987 to 1993).

On February 10, 1981, WGN-TV began utilizing the satellite feed's audio subcarrier signal to transmit programming schedules delivered to the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) service (later Prevue Guide and now the entertainment-based Pop, and operated by United Video's Trakker Inc. unit at the time) in a 2400 bit/s data stream over the satellite feed's vertical blanking interval (VBI) to local cable providers receiving the schedule information to the EPG's proprietary computer units. However, despite being notified that WGN would be conducting tests of the programming information teletext, United Video chose to substitute the material with teletext content from its Dow Jones business news service; its repurposing of the VBI became the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Tribune Broadcasting against United Video in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois that April, alleging that it retransmitted the station's prime time newscast, The Nine O'Clock News (now titled WGN News at Nine), as well as other WGN-TV programs in a "mutilated and altered" fashion to use profitable teletext content from the Dow Jones service in a manner which resulted in United Video exercising direct control over the content in violation of Section 111(a) (3) of the 1976 Copyright Act and in interference with an agreement between WGN-TV and Albuquerque, New Mexico cable provider Albuquerque Cable Television Inc. to supply the EPG teletext to subscribers. United Video contended that the Copyright Act's passive carrier rules applied to how it utilized the VBI, maintaining also that transmitting extraneous material to cable systems did not constitute a public performance and the teletext material was a separate transmission from the copyrighted program since it required a standalone decoder to view it over television receivers.

On October 8, 1981, District Court Judge Susan Getzendanner denied injunctive relief to WGN Continental Broadcasting and dismissed the case against United Video, citing that it was not required to carry the station's teletext transmission. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Northern District of Illinois reversed Getzendanner's decision on August 12, 1982, ordering in a narrowly defined ruling that United Video must retransmit WGN-TV's VBI teletext where the transmission was directly related to and part of the 9:00 p.m. news simulcast. The court pointed out that "purely passive [intermediary]" carriers cannot make any changes or outright remove any part of the copyrighted transmission and that United Video had no grounds to claim exemption from copyright liability as the definition of what the Copyright Act constitutes as a public performance was broad enough to encompass indirect transmission through cable systems that received the WGN satellite feed.

In 1985, Tribune Broadcasting began providing a direct microwave relay link of the WGN-TV signal to United Video to serve as a contingency feed to allow United access to WGN programming in the event of any problems with the microwave link-up. Separate national advertising or per inquiry ads also began to be inserted over the satellite feed in place of local advertisements intended for broadcast in the Chicago market (which, with a few exceptions, became exclusively carried by channel 9 locally). This also allowed the station to increase the amount of advertising revenue it accrued by charging separate rates for the Chicago-area signal and a higher fee for advertisers purchasing airtime on the national signal, and offering advertisers exclusive commercial avails for either the Chicago-based audience or the national cable audience, or uniform avails for both the national and local audiences. Despite the feed restructuring, the vast majority of the shows viewable over WGN-TV in the Chicago area continued to air nationally over the satellite signal. In July 1987, United Video began transmitting the WGN superstation feed in stereo; all WGN-TV-produced programming was made available to participating systems in the format, while other programming was initially transmitted in synthesized stereo audio.

On May 18, 1988, the FCC reinstituted the Syndication Exclusivity Rights Rule ("SyndEx"), a rule – previously repealed by the agency in July 1980 – that allows television stations to claim local exclusivity over syndicated programs and requires cable systems to either black out or secure an agreement with the claimant station or a syndication distributor to continue carrying a claimed program through an out-of-market station. To indemnify cable systems from potential blackouts, Tribune and United Video began to secure national retransmission rights to certain programs featured on the WGN Chicago signal—particularly, local and some syndicated programs as well as sporting events not subjected to league restrictions pertaining to the number of games that could be shown on out-of-market stations annually—and substitute programs not subjected to exclusivity claims—mainly syndicated reruns of recent and older comedy and drama series, select first-run syndicated shows, and acquired theatrical feature and made-for-television films not shown on the Chicago feed—to ensure that the national feed would not face blackout issues. United Video also made contingency plans to put alternative programming on a second satellite to which it could switch in order to absolve any holes in the WGN-TV national feed's schedule by leasing part-time space for the affected time periods.

When the Syndex rules went into effect on January 1, 1990, United Video formally launched a separate national feed of WGN that featured the WGN-TV-transmitted and separately acquired programs cleared for "full-signal" carriage, although it continued to run much of the same programs as the Chicago broadcast signal with limited programming differentiation from its parent station for most of the 1990s. (This feed was originally structured similarly to the concurrently launched WWOR EMI Service feed of WWOR-TV, albeit with a larger amount of shared programming.) Of the four United Video-distributed superstations, WGN was the only one to have its national coverage expand post-Syndex, adding 2.2 million households with cable or satellite service to its total reach by July 1990; some systems also began to swap out New York City-area rivals WPIX and WWOR in favor of offering the WGN superstation feed in the years immediately following that feed's launch as it offered fewer blackout-subjected programs than other affected superstations. The national feed's distribution gradually expanded further to direct broadcast satellite through agreements with DirecTV, Dish Network and Primestar over the course of the 1990s. (A separate feed of WGN-TV was also uplinked in March 1989 by Netlink – a carrier firm operated by cable television provider Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), which began distributing WGN as part of a satellite program package to C-band dishes in October 1987 – for distribution to home satellite dish owners.) In January 1992, WGN-TV signed an agreement with A.C. Nielsen Co. to provide monthly measurements of the station's national audience (separate from its ratings tallies for its Chicago viewership) through Nielsen's cable network measurement service.

On November 2, 1993, Time Warner announced the formation of The WB Television Network, a venture developed in partnership with the Tribune Company (which, prior to acquiring an 11% interest in August 1995, was a non-equity partner in the new network) and former Fox network executive Jamie Kellner (who would serve as the original president of and would hold a minority ownership stake in The WB). Tribune committed six of the seven independent stations it owned at the time to serve as charter affiliates of the network, though it initially exempted the WGN-TV Chicago signal from the agreement, as station management had expressed concerns about how the network's plans to expand its prime time and daytime program offerings would affect WGN's sports broadcast rights and the impact that the potential of having to phase them out to fulfill network commitments would have on the superstation feed's appeal to cable and satellite providers elsewhere around the United States. Tribune would reverse course on December 3, 1993, reaching a separate agreement with Time Warner to allow WGN-TV to become The WB's charter affiliate for the Chicago market and allow the WGN superstation feed to serve as a de facto national network feed intended for American media markets that did not initially have a local affiliate; this would bide The WB enough time to fill remaining gaps in affiliate coverage in "white area" regions that lacked a standalone independent station following its launch. In exchange, Time Warner agreed to reduce the network's initial program offerings to one night per week (from two) in order to limit conflicts with WGN's sports programming. The superstation feed, which reached 37% of the country by that time, would extend the network's initial coverage to 73% of all U.S. households that had at least one television set.

The WGN-TV local and superstation feeds became charter affiliates of The WB when the network launched on January 11, 1995. (In the case of the Chicago signal, this marked the first time that WGN-TV was affiliated with a major broadcast network since DuMont ceased operations in August 1956.) The WGN cable agreement resulted in The WB becoming the second American broadcast television network to distribute its programming directly to a cable-originated service to provide extended coverage in designated "white areas" without broadcast affiliate clearances and one of three network-to-cable undertakings stewarded by Jamie Kellner. As The WB was under development, Kellner was in process of developing The WeB, a proposed national WB cable feed for smaller markets based upon a service that he launched as President of the Fox Broadcasting Company, Foxnet, which operated from June 1991 until September 2006. The use of WGN as a national relay feed gave The WB an early advantage over the United Paramount Network (UPN) – another fledgling network that made its national debut on January 16, 1995, as a joint venture between Chris-Craft/United Television and Paramount Television – which declined to allow the WWOR EMI Service to act as its national conduit in spite of similar initial gaps in UPN's broadcast affiliate coverage. The WGN superstation feed accounted for roughly 18% of the national coverage that The WB had at launch, with the rest of the network's initial 62% total reach coming from the 60 broadcast affiliates (including WGN-TV) that were willing to adhere to its reverse compensation plan for prospective affiliates. In some areas where cable systems did not carry the superstation feed and maintenance of a local WB affiliate was not yet possible, satellite distribution was the only method in which viewers could see the network's programming over WGN. (The WGN national feed served as the default WB affiliate for residents in 152 markets and the entirety of 21 U.S. states—Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming—at varying periods of time up through the launch of The WeB.) United Video intended to provide an alternate feed of WGN with substitute programming for markets that had a WB-affiliated station; however, no such measure was taken, creating network duplication in markets where over-the-air WB affiliates were forced to compete with the WGN cable feed.

The WGN superstation feed carried The WB's prime time lineup from the start of the network's operations, and added the Kids' WB children's programming block when it was launched by the network on September 11, 1995. Conversely, in the Chicago market, WGN-TV chose to only air the network's prime time lineup, and exercised a right of first refusal to decline Kids' WB in order to offer a local morning newscast and an afternoon block of syndicated sitcoms aimed at a family audience on weekdays and a mix of locally produced news, public affairs and children's programs as well as paid programs on weekend mornings; this cleared the way for Weigel Broadcasting to cut a separate deal to air Kids' WB programs locally over group flagship WCIU-TV (channel 26, now a CW affiliate), an independent station that ran the block Monday through Saturdays from September 1995 until WGN-TV began clearing the block on its schedule in September 2004. As The WB's initial program offerings ran on Wednesdays for its first nine months of operation and would not expand its prime time schedule to six nights a week until September 1999, the superstation feed filled the 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time slot on nights without WB network programming with either sports telecasts from WGN-TV that were cleared for national broadcast – which, as The WB expanded its programming to other nights over a four-year period beginning with the September 1995 launch of its Sunday lineup, would result in pre-emptions of the network's programs until later in the week – or, as with most over-the-air WB affiliates during the network's early years, theatrical feature films acquired via the syndication market.

By 1995, the WGN superstation feed was available to about 85% of all American cable systems, reaching approximately 35 million households; however, the superstation feed maintained some distribution gaps in parts of the Northeastern and Western United States (including in select major markets like Pittsburgh and the immediate New York City area) well into the 2000s. In May 1995, United Video transferred retransmission responsibilities for the WGN, WPIX and KTLA superstation feeds to its newly incorporated UVTV subsidiary. In 1997, Tele-Communications Inc. and Tribune discussed a proposal to sell a 50% ownership stake in the WGN superstation feed to TCI – which, in January 1996, acquired a controlling interest in United Video, eventually expanding its share in the company to an approximate 73% equity and 93% stock and voting interest by January 1998 – and convert it into a basic cable channel (similar to what WTBS had done that same year and similar to Tribune's own conversion of WGN America into a basic service that began in 2014). The proposal would have also seen TCI provide additional programing (including library content from distributors through which parent company Liberty Media had held investments) and receive subscriber fees paid by participating cable systems. This proposal ultimately did not precipitate a deal, with Tribune and United Video maintaining stewardship of the national channel.

Into the late 1990s, The WB began to expand its local broadcast coverage in American media markets that had to rely on the WGN national feed to receive the network's programming through affiliation agreements signed with local broadcast stations (including UPN charter affiliates, leftover independents, former noncommercial stations adopting an entertainment format, and dual affiliations with stations already affiliated with other networks [such as UPN]) within the top-100 media markets after its launch; coverage in the 110 smallest markets was achieved through the September 1998 launch of The WeB (subsequently renamed The WB 100+ Station Group), a packaged feed of WB network and syndicated programs provided to participating cable-based affiliates. With local availability becoming less of an issue and with exclusivity protections being granted by the network to its affiliates in certain markets by this time, on January 27, 1999, Time Warner and Tribune mutually agreed to cease the stopgap WB programming relay over the WGN superstation feed effective that fall. On October 6, when the WGN superstation feed formally stopped carrying WB network programming, Kids' WB programming on weekday mornings and afternoons and on Sunday mornings was replaced with syndicated series, while feature films replaced The WB's prime time programs, resulting in the superstation's schedule more so resembling an independent station than a general entertainment cable network due to the presence of local programming from WGN-TV. The removal of WB programming from the superstation feed reduced The WB's potential audience by 10 million households, and was cited as the reason behind the network's season-to-season ratings decline during the 1999–2000 season, which saw The WB lose an estimated 19% of its household audience as a consequence of the decision and fall to sixth place (behind UPN) in the Nielsen ratings. For similar reasons to those that necessitated the decision to remove WB programming from the channel, WGN America also did not carry any programming from The CW when WGN-TV became its Chicago charter affiliate when that network launched in September 2006, due to the fact that The CW is widely available throughout the United States via over-the-air broadcast stations and affiliations with digital subchannels and local cable outlets (including through The CW Plus in smaller markets) when that network launched in September 2006.

Between 1998 and 2005, the amount of common programming shown on both the Chicago signal and national superstation feeds steadily decreased, an issue that continued well after the WGN America rebrand. Comparatively, approximately 50% of the programs seen on WGN consisted of those originating on the Chicago feed that were cleared for "full-signal" carriage by the national feed; this proportion of common programming dropped to around 30% by 2005 through the prior removal of WB programming and the overall schedule beginning to rely more on programs acquired specifically for national carriage as syndicators increasingly insisted on exclusivity protection for their series and film packages and were unwilling to license the rights to higher-profile syndicated programs to the superstation feed, believing that it would be more lucrative to license those programs to individual stations.

On July 12, 2000, Gemstar International Group Limited acquired TV Guide, Inc. (which United Video Satellite Group renamed itself following its 1999 purchase of TV Guide magazine from News Corporation), subsequently changing its name to Gemstar–TV Guide International. In April 2001, Tribune Broadcasting purchased a majority interest in UVTV – one of three satellite carrier units, along with Superstar/Netlink Group and Netlink USA, that were operated by the company – from TV Guide, Inc. unit of Gemstar–TV Guide (which was refocusing its assets around TV Guide magazine, the TV Guide Interactive interactive program guide platform and the TV Guide Channel) for $106 million in cash, shifting responsibility for retransmission, distribution and promotion of the WGN superstation feed to Tribune and effectively transitioning WGN from a "passive" to an "active" superstation, as TBS had been since it was first uplinked in December 1976. (The transaction would be the subject of a 2004 Securities and Exchange Commission securities fraud investigation against co-president Peter Boylan that determined that Gemstar failed to inform investors that Tribune committed to a six-year, $100 million advertising contract with Gemstar in exchange for selling its stake in WGN to Tribune.)

On September 10, 2001, the channel's name was changed to WGN Superstation, in an effort by Tribune Broadcasting to emphasize the channel's national programming prominence; the WGN-TV Chicago signal, meanwhile, continued to use the callsign-only "WGN" branding with the "Channel 9" identification remaining as a sub-brand. On November 11, 2002, the superstation feed underwent another name change, becoming known as Superstation WGN to reflect the strong national standing of the channel; this change coincided with the introduction of the Akzidenz Grotesk "arrow G" logo introduced by WGN-TV at that time (and used until May 15, 2017), which was stylized for the superstation feed's logo design to also incorporate an oval with a die-cut "S" emblem to represent its superstation status.

On April 1, 2007, Chicago-based real estate investor Sam Zell announced plans to purchase the Tribune Company in a leveraged buyout worth $8.2 billion, under which Tribune employees were awarded stock and given effective ownership of the company. The transaction and concurring privatization of Tribune was completed upon termination of the company's stock at the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on December 20, 2007, at which time Zell formally became the company's chairman and chief executive officer (CEO).

The "Superstation" identifier was removed from the cable channel's on-air branding and promotions on May 24, 2008, when it adopted the name WGN America. The new name as well as its accompanying slogan ("TV You Can't Ignore") and logo (an illustration of a woman's eyes, designed similarly to the "eye-and-profile" logo scheme used by premium service The Movie Channel from May 1988 until June 1997) went into full-time use on May 26, 2008. On-air promotions began identifying the channel as WGN America on a limited basis since the beginning of May 2008, although channel IDs using the "Superstation WGN" moniker remained in place during the transitional period. (The logo adopted as part of the branding overhaul marked the first time that the superstation feed utilized an on-air logo that did not incorporate the visual branding used by WGN-TV in some capacity, although promotional advertising logos for the national channel used prior to 1993 differed from that of the Chicago signal.)

The channel began to slowly revamp its programming lineup, acquiring additional recent and older television series and adding marathon-style blocks of acquired series on weekend mornings. A few shows were also dropped from the WGN America schedule (such as longtime staples U.S. Farm Report and Soul Train), primarily due to the Tribune Company dissolving its television production and distribution unit, Tribune Entertainment. The network's on-screen logo bug was revised In late July 2008, to feature the eye-and-profile element of the logo morphing into the "WGN America" text; the eye-and-profile element remained part of the general logo in all other uses until January 2009, when it was deemphasized in favor of using the channel's wordmark text as the primary logo. In June 2008, Zell and Tribune co-Chief Executive Officer at the time, Randy Michaels, disclosed to the media during a nationwide tour promoting the Tribune properties that the company was interested in producing a late night talk show hosted by comedian Jay Leno, following the end of his initial run as host of NBC's The Tonight Show that year, intending to use the Tribune television stations as a major distribution arm and WGN America as a national broadcaster of the show. However, in December 2008, NBC reached a deal with Leno for him to host a new prime time talk show to fill the 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time slot on Monday through Friday evenings. (Low national viewership and concerns about its effects on late local newscasts prompted NBC to cancel The Jay Leno Show in February 2010, leading to the network's controversial decision to reinstate Leno as host of The Tonight Show one month later, after initial plans to move him to a separate Tonight lead-in led to the resignation of his replacement on that program, Conan O'Brien, and O'Brien's subsequent launch of a new late-night talk show on TBS.)

On December 8, 2008, the Tribune Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing a debt load of around $13 billion – making it the largest media bankruptcy in American corporate history – that it accrued from the Zell buyout and related privatization costs as well as a sharp downturn in revenue from newspaper advertising. In April 2009, WGN America underwent another rebrand, with a new retro-style logo (which was updated on July 1, 2010 to a more minimalistic graphic style), a new five-note sounder (based on the sound ID used by WGN Radio in Chicago), new graphics, a new slogan ("Everywhere America Calls Home"), and the introduction of some original programming to its schedule. The changes were made in order to increase its cable distribution outside the channel's traditional coverage area and position itself as a general entertainment network that programs to the entire nation, not just Chicago and the Midwest.

With the Tribune Company undergoing ownership and management changes following its exit from protracted Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization proceedings on December 31, 2012, under the control of senior debt holders Oaktree Capital Management, JPMorgan Chase and Angelo, Gordon & Co. (a reorganization which also led to the eventual spin-off of the company's publishing division in August 2014 to focus on its broadcasting, digital media and real estate units), Tribune announced plans to convert WGN America from a superstation into a conventional cable-originated entertainment channel, similar to TBS's transition to a traditional cable channel—albeit in a hybrid form as it continued to relay its programming over its Atlanta parent station for nine years afterward—in January 1998. Ironically, it was the national TBS channel's separation from its parent Atlanta station WTBS (which was concurrently re-called WPCH-TV as part of the restructuring of the two services) on October 1, 2007, that resulted in WGN America becoming the last remaining American superstation to be distributed nationally through cable television systems as well as satellite and other types of multichannel subscription television providers.

Plans called for WGN America to incorporate scripted original programming, to migrate from "limited basic" (or "lifeline") programming tiers (where it is carried alongside local and, in some areas, non-superstation-structured out-of-market broadcast television stations and public access channels) to the "expanded basic" tiers of cable and other wired multichannel television providers, and forego its longstanding royalty payment structure to adopt a retransmission consent model in future carriage agreements in which Tribune would receive subscriber-based fees from its multichannel television distributors for carriage of the network. Matt Cherniss was appointed as the first president and general manager of WGN America and Tribune Studios, a new production unit that was formed with the intent of producing some of the network's original content, on March 19, 2013.

Salem and WGN America saw a major promotional push that commenced with Fox's broadcast of Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2, which saw part of their local advertising time on Tribune Broadcasting's fifteen Fox-affiliated stations (including those located in Seattle and Denver, the two cities whose local NFL franchises – the Seahawks and the Broncos, respectively – played in the game) being used to run an extended promotional ad for Salem, followed by further promotion on other Tribune-owned/operated local television stations in the lead-up to the show's April 20 premiere. In a May 2014 symposium at the MoffattNathanson Media & Communications Summit, Tribune President and CEO Peter Liguori – a former Fox and Discovery Communications executive who joined the Tribune Company in December 2012 – stated that with its new programming strategy, about 50% of participating American multichannel television providers would begin offering WGN America as a conventional cable-originated channel by the end of 2014, with all providers offering it on a higher-end basic programming tier by around 2016.

WGN America's conversion into a conventional cable-originated channel became formal on December 13, 2014. On December 15, Tribune reached a carriage agreement with Comcast Xfinity that saw WGN America move from limited to expanded basic tiers effective the following day (December 16) on its systems in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Chicago. Despite the reduction in common programming between WGN-TV and WGN America towards the end of their joint existence as a national superstation, the channel's addition to Comcast's Chicago systems marked the first time that WGN America had been available on cable television – instead of just on direct-broadcast and C-band satellite, as had been the case for about two decades – in the home market of its former parent station. The three Tribune-owned superstations that remained, WPIX, KTLA and KWGN-TV, were confined in their remaining U.S. distribution to wired subscription television services to their respective regions of the United States (the Pacific and Desert Southwest for KTLA, the Intermountain West for KWGN and the Northeast for WPIX), but remained available nationally through Dish Network, albeit restricted to existing subscribers who purchased its a la carte superstation tier before Dish halted the tier's sale to new subscribers in September 2013. (WGN-TV would regain national availability in the spring of 2015, when Channel Master included the Chicago feed among the initial offerings of its LinearTV over-the-top streaming service.)

On June 12, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Dish Network removed Tribune Broadcasting's 43 television stations and WGN America from its lineup, after the two companies were unable to reconcile terms on renewing their existing carriage contract. WGN America's channel slot was replaced by a duplicate feed of TNT during the blackout. (The company's broadcast television stations, such as WGN-TV, were replaced with a repeating recorded video message prepared by Dish Network notifying viewers of their removal.) After having its television properties off the satellite provider for 1½ months, Tribune and Dish Network reached a deal to return the Tribune Broadcasting stations and WGN America to the Dish lineup on September 3, commencing hours after the announcement.

On December 3, 2018, Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Media Group announced it would acquire Tribune's assets including WGN America for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. Nexstar traditionally has structured itself as a local-specific media company, and has spun off most of the more national or extraneous assets of companies that it has acquired in the recent past. Following the Tribune purchase announcement, representatives for Nexstar stated that the company would consider the sale of certain "non-core" assets tied to the sale during or after the acquisition process, though it instead decided to wind those non-core operations down, including Zap2It and TV by the Numbers. There was a possibility that WGN America and WGN Radio (which would ultimately become the first radio property ever to be owned by the group) would have been sold off, though Nexstar eventually decided to retain and strengthen both properties. The purchase was finalized between the two groups on September 19, 2019. Upon completion of the purchase, Nexstar expanded the responsibilities of WGN America president/general manager Matt Cherniss to include oversight of WGN Radio and Antenna TV.

As of 2019, WGN America's programming slate relies primarily on a variety of reruns such as Blue Bloods, Last Man Standing, M*A*S*H, Murder, She Wrote, How I Met Your Mother, Elementary, Married... with Children, In the Heat of the Night and JAG. As is typical for cable networks, some of the shows airing on the channel are also available on other broadcast television stations throughout the United States; for much of its post-Syndex existence as the superstation feed of WGN-TV/Chicago, many of these programs were cleared by television syndication distributors for "full-signal" rights, therefore allowing them to air on WGN America as they do not fall under syndication exclusivity regulations (for example, although How I Met Your Mother is syndicated to other television stations nationwide, including WGN-TV, it is allowed to air on WGN America due to its clearance by 20th Television for "full-signal" carriage). However, in 2013, WGN America began to acquire exclusive cable rights to programs eligible for syndication (such as Person of Interest and Parks and Recreation) as part of the channel's shift towards operating as a conventional cable network.

Feature films on WGN America are also cleared for "full-signal" carriage, as the channel runs movies from film packages distributed for local broadcast syndication by Warner Bros. Television, Disney-ABC Domestic Television, 20th Television, Sony Pictures Television and other distributors. Movies formed much of the superstation's prime time schedule for much of its existence until the "Superstation WGN" branding era, though there have been exceptions: fewer prime time movies aired during the week during its four-year run as a cable-only affiliate of The WB from January 1995 to October 1999, particularly as that network's programming expanded to additional nights, with films airing on a nightly basis again – except on certain nights throughout the year to accommodate WGN-TV-produced sports telecasts cleared for national retransmission – once WB programming was dropped. (Films were later removed from Sunday nights with the launch of the "Outta Sight Retro Night" block in August 2007 and from Thursday nights between 2009 and 2010 to accommodate original programs such as WWE Superstars.) WGN America no longer airs movies in primetime, having been relegated to Sunday afternoons and weekend late nights since September 18, 2010.

Until 2012, the channel's morning and early afternoon schedule heavily relied on reruns of television series produced between the 1960s and the early 1990s. These programs were also prominently featured as part of the classic sitcom block "Outta Sight Retro Night," which aired Sunday nights (incorporating a one-hour breakaway within the block's designated nine-hour-long time period for the 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time simulcasts of WGN News at Nine and Instant Replay) from August 26, 2007 until September 5, 2010. Some of the programs shown as part of the block – which included series such as WKRP in Cincinnati, Newhart, ALF, Barney Miller and The Honeymooners – had previously aired on WGN prior to the re-implementation of Syndex, or even after the rules went into effect on the Chicago signal or/and the superstation feed. (Tribune Broadcasting later included some of these shows on Antenna TV, a broadcast network focusing on classic television series that Tribune launched on January 1, 2011.

During the early 2000s, WGN America acquired sub-run syndication rights to series that had previously aired in their original broadcast runs during the channel's affiliation with The WB, including 7th Heaven, The Wayans Bros., Sister, Sister and The Parent 'Hood. Between 2006 and 2009, WGN America ran teen- and preteen-oriented sitcoms during mid-afternoon timeslots such as Lizzie McGuire, Even Stevens and Sister, Sister, only for these shows to quickly be moved to overnight graveyard slots (when the show's target audiences are usually not awake) and then removed from the channel entirely shortly afterward. This was likely due to the restructuring of Tribune's television division and a distribution agreement with the Disney Channel that proved too expensive to maintain.

As of 2020, WGN America presently broadcasts 22 hours of WGN-TV's local newscasts each week (almost one-quarter of the 72½ hours of newscasts that station produces on a weekly basis), with four hours on weekdays and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays; it simulcasts the first two hours of the weekday morning newscast, the 12 p.m. hour of the weekday WGN Midday News and the nightly 9 p.m. newscast (all times Central), along with the 20-minute Sunday evening sports highlight program Instant Replay. Since 2008, WGN-TV anchors reference the national simulcast at the beginning of the noon and 9 p.m. newscasts, except on weekend evenings; the superstation feed ironically does not air promotions for the WGN-TV newscasts. WGN America also airs certain specials produced by WGN-TV's news department (which typically air on occasions in which WGN-TV abbreviates the hour-long 9 p.m. newscast to a half-hour in order to air a news special).

From the implementation of the SyndEx rules in January 1990 until September 2019, the simulcasts of WGN-TV's midday and nightly 9:00 p.m. newscasts were occasionally preempted on the WGN national feed if either clearance issues that prevented a game telecast (usually a Bulls game shown exclusively on the Chicago signal) that was scheduled to start at or run past 9:00 p.m. Central Time shown locally from being aired over the national feed, a WGN-TV Cubs or White Sox game telecast started on WGN America at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time or – with the exception of a period from September 13, 2010 until May 2013, when it filled the prime time lineup with sitcom reruns – movies shown only over the national channel were scheduled to run past the 9:00 p.m. Central slot.

Aside from programming shared by both the local and national superstation feeds that have been cleared for "full-signal" carriage, other local programs shared between the two feeds (in addition to the morning, noon and 9 p.m. newscasts) include the Saturday morning public affairs programs Adelante, Chicago and People to People (which are rotated in the same 6:30 a.m. CT timeslot on a bi-weekly basis) and select feature films (though they are aired in different timeslots than they air on WGN-TV Chicago). WGN America also simulcasts or airs on a delayed basis other Chicago-based programs produced by WGN's local programming department, such as local parades, event coverage, or retrospective shows on WGN's past (these include the Chicago Thanksgiving Parade and the special Bozo, Gar and Ray: WGN TV Classics).

WGN America also airs certain sporting events with national implications, including coverage of the Los Angeles Marathon from sister station KTLA (which is blacked out in the Los Angeles market to accommodate the KTLA broadcast), and Illinois-based horse racing events that serve as a prep race for any Grand Slam of Thoroughbred Racing event and does not have a national television deal, such as the Arlington Million (which airs on WGN America during years when NBC Sports does not broadcast the event).