In 1989, the FCC passed the "Syndicated Exclusivity Rights" rule (or "SyndEx") into law—which required cable providers to black out certain syndicated programs on out-of-market stations where local broadcasters claim the rights to air in a particular market. In order to lighten the burden on cable providers as a result of this law, Eastern Microwave acquired the rights to programs to which no station owned exclusive in-market rights. It then broadcast this programming on WWOR's national feed to replace programs that could not be aired nationally. Most of the programs came from the Universal and Quinn Martin libraries, along with some shows from The Christian Science Monitors television service, as well as some holdover shows that had aired on the local New York feed before the SyndEx law's passage. Eastern Microwave would eventually launch a separate feed for satellite and cable subscribers on January 1, 1990, called the "WWOR EMI Service". By the early 1990s, WWOR and WPIX began to be replaced on many cable systems by the superstation feed of WGN-TV, which also launched an alternate feed for nationwide viewers in response to SyndEx regulations.WGN gains 2.2M subs; program appeal cited., Multichannel News, July 16, 1990. Retrieved August 24, 2012, from HighBeam Research.Umstead, R. Thomas. "Midwest systems switch out WWOR; cable television operators sign up WGN", Multichannel News, January 13, 1992. Retrieved March 1, 2011, from HighBeam Research.
