station's distribution—while broad—was still relatively regionally scattered and paced far behind that of WTBS and WGN well into the 1990s. United Video would eventually gain an oligopoly in superstation distribution throughout the 1980s, building on its success with WGN-TV by commencing distribution of three other superstations and handling marketing responsibilities for one more (including three that were owned by then-WGN parent Tribune Broadcasting). On May 1, 1984, United Video—which picked up the station's satellite retransmission rights from Southern Satellite Systems—uplinked the signal of WPIX to the Westar V satellite; this was followed on July 1, 1984, with its uplink of the signal of KTVT in Dallas–Fort Worth to the Satcom IV satellite, in a move undertaken by then-owner Gaylord Broadcasting to persuade cable providers that either already imported or were considering receiving the station's signal by microwave to begin transmitting the KTVT satellite feed. (United Video would later relocate KTVT's transponder to the Spacenet III in December 1988.) On October 24, 1987, Netlink—then a subsidiary of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI)—began distributing KWGN-TV (channel 2, now a CW affiliate) over Satcom I as part of the company's "Denver 5" direct-to-home package of television stations from Colorado's state capital that also included five default network feeds for home dish subscribers without access to a local network affiliate: NBC owned-and-operated station KCNC-TV (channel 4, now a CBS owned-and-operated station), ABC affiliate KUSA-TV (channel 9, now an NBC affiliate), CBS affiliate KMGH-TV (channel 7, now an ABC affiliate), PBS station KRMA-TV (channel 6) and Fox affiliate KDVR (channel 31). (KWGN's satellite feed was limited in its availability to home dish users; although, at its peak, the station itself had cable carriage throughout Colorado's Western Slope, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.) On February 15, 1988, Eastern Microwave Inc. began distributing WSBK-TV and KTLA (channel 5) in Los Angeles via the Satcom I-R satellite. (WSBK-TV was selected primarily for its broadcasts of Boston Bruins hockey and Boston Red Sox baseball games, while KTLA was selected for its broadcasts of Los Angeles Clippers basketball and California Angels baseball games.) EMI chose to encourage rather than compel cable systems in the Northeastern U.S. that already received WSBK by microwave to begin receiving the satellite feed, and outsourced marketing of the signals to home dish owners through HBO and TEMPO Enterprises. Both superstations were notable for being the first to have their signals