Spectrum (TV channel)
Encyclopedia
Spectrum was a subscription TV channel in the Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 area that existed in the early 1980s. It was a direct competitor to ON-TV
ON-TV
ON-TV, also known as National Subscription Television, was a subscription television service launched in 1977 by Oak Industries, Norman Lear's Chartwell Enterprises and Jerry Perenchio. Oak was a manufacturer of satellite and pay-TV decoders and equipment...

 and operated in the same way. It was owned and operated by United Cable.

Usage

Subscribers were required to purchase a descrambler box for their TV set and pay a monthly fee. The signal broadcast on UHF channel 66 (WFBN, now WGBO). Spectrum aired a combination of sporting events and movies, all commercial free.

United Cable intended Spectrum as a way to penetrate the Chicago market as the city of Chicago was not wired for cable TV until the mid 1980s.

Demise

Ultimately, Spectrum was unsuccessful. They encountered technical issues with their broadcast signal because WFBN 66's signal transmitter on the John Hancock Center
John Hancock Center
John Hancock Center at 875 North Michigan Avenue in the Streeterville area of Chicago, Illinois, is a 100-story, 1,127-foot tall skyscraper, constructed under the supervision of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, with chief designer Bruce Graham and structural engineer Fazlur Khan...

 only transmitted to the east antenna mast. This seriously hampered Spectrum's ability to reach viewers to the west of the tower. By 1983, in the face of cable TV entering the Chicago market and the economic recession, Spectrum went out of business the following year and sold its subscriber list to competitor ON-TV. By mid-1985, ON-TV was also out of business, and its broadcast UHF channel (WSNS 44) would eventually be affiliated with Univision
Univision
Univision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers according to Nielsen ratings. Randy Falco, COO, has been in charge of the company since the departure of Univision Communications president and CEO Joe Uva...

 and later by the Telemundo
Telemundo
Telemundo is an American television network that broadcasts in Spanish. The network is the second-largest Spanish-language content producer in the world, and the second-largest Spanish-language network in the United States, behind Univision....

network.
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