USA Broadcasting was an American media company owned by veteran entertainment industry executive Barry Diller. This network was the over-the-air broadcasting arm of USA Network.
USAB dates back to the mid-1990s when Diller purchased Silver King Broadcasting from Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson and Roy Speer. Paxson and Speer had assembled the group to expand their company, Home Shopping Network, onto broadcast television. The stations carried the Home Shopping Club (now America's Store).
Diller planned to remove shopping shows from most of the stations' broadcast days and replace them with local and syndicated programs. He wanted to tie each of the stations very closely to the communities they served, and to open up opportunities for locally-produced programs.
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 aired syndicated programming as well as local sports. WAMI aired Miami Heat basketball and Florida Marlins baseball games. WHOT and KSTR also carried pro 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 Hockey games. HSC/America's Store continued to air on late nights and weekends.
There were also plans to convert stations in New York (proposed callsign: WORX, "The Works"), Los Angeles (proposed callsign: KLIK, "Click") and Chicago (proposed callsign: WNDE, "Windy") to the new local-TV model. However, due to financial troubles in 2001, USA Broadcasting had scrapped those plans and reduced programming on their existing independent stations. That same year, Diller has suddenly put the entire station roster up for sale. Disney/ABC and Univision were the companies in the running for buying the stations, but Univision had outbid Disney in a close race. In August 2001, Univision purchased the stations and converted them into Spanish language outlets; some affiliated with Univision, but most joined its new sister network, Telefutura, which launched in January 2002. Diller still owns HSN and other interactive and shopping services such as TicketMaster and Expedia.com.
Read more about USA Broadcasting: Other Stations, Stations Owned By USA Broadcasting
Famous quotes containing the words usa and/or broadcasting:
“The biggest difference between ancient Rome and the USA is that in Rome the common man was treated like a dog. In America he sets the tone. This is the first country where the common man could stand erect.”
—I.F. (Isidor Feinstein)
“We spend all day broadcasting on the radio and TV telling people back home what’s happening here. And we learn what’s happening here by spending all day monitoring the radio and TV broadcasts from back home.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)