WGN America

WGN America was an American subscription television network, owned by the Nexstar Media Group - the company's only wholly owned, national cable-originated television channel. The channel in its final form under the WGN branding ran a mixture of entertainment programming (consisting of comedy and drama series, and theatrical feature films) for most of the broadcast day and a straight-news format—via a daily national prime time newscast, NewsNation—during the evening and early overnight hours. WGN America traces to its founding by United Video Inc. as a superstation feed of Chicago independent station WGN-TV, and the channel's operational history from its November 1978 launch to its current ownership by Nexstar Media Group, up to its relaunch as general news channel NewsNation, which occurred on March 1, 2021. Early years WGN America traces its origins to WGN-TV, a broadcast television station in Chicago, Illinois that began operating over VHF channel 9 on April 5, 1948 as the second commercial television station to sign on in both the Chicago market and the state of Illinois – after WBKB-TV (channel 4, now CBS owned-and-operated station WBBM-TV on channel 2), which began experimental operations as W9XBK in 1940 and converted into a commercially licensed independent station on September 6, 1946 – and the 19th commercial station to sign on in the United States. The station – which, until January 1948, had initially planned to use the call sign WGNA – was founded by WGN, Incorporated, the broadcasting subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune Company (owned by Robert R. McCormick, then the editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune), which had also owned local radio stations WGN (720 AM) and WGNB (98.7 FM; frequency now occupied by WFMT). WGN America and its Chicago-based broadcast television and radio siblings borrow the three-letter "WGN" initialism from the "World's Greatest Newspaper" slogan used by the Tribune from August 29, 1911 until December 31, 1976. (The calls were initially obtained by the Tribune in 1924 for use on the former WDAP radio station, which it had then recently acquired from Zenith-Edgewater Beach Broadcasting, by permission of the owners of the then-under-construction SS Carl D.