WOR EMI Service was a national cable network. It was the national version of the New York City market's WWOR-TV Channel 9, uplinked to satellite by Eastern Microwave, Inc , who later sold the satellite distribution rights to American Entertainment Corporation . This version of WWOR was launched on January 1, 1990, due to a law passed by the FCC known as "SyndEx , which states that whenever a local TV station has the exclusive rights to air a syndicated program, it must be blacked out on any out-of-market stations that were carried by the local cable companies. After distributing the same WOR/WWOR signal that New York viewers saw throughout the 1980s, EMI purchased the rights to programs that no stations claimed exclusive rights to. Most of WWOR's syndicated programs that they had the rights to show in New York City were covered up by the alternate programming on the national version, save for sports, newscasts, and a select few shows that weren't claimed as exclusive to any market. When Channel 9 became a UPN affiliate in 1995, the network shows were also covered up. While New York City viewers got Star Trek: Voyager, cable viewers throughout the rest of the country got Hazel reruns. In mid-1996, EMI sold satellite distribution rights to WWOR and WSBK Boston to AEC. On January 1, 1997, AEC discontinued the feed, selling WWOR's old spot to The Discovery Channel for the then-upstart Animal Planet.

Due to the outcry of satellite dish owners who missed WWOR, the station was returned to the satellite on a different transponder by National Programming Services . The national feed was once again the same feed that New York viewers saw, complete with all of the syndicated programming and UPN intact, due to the station now only being distributed outside of New York to satellite dish owners. This feed was discontinued in 1999, but Dish Network still carries the New York feed of WWOR in both the Local package in New York and the SuperStations package across the country.

See also

• WWOR-TV, the local version