Channel America - Definition and Overview

Channel America was the first United States terrestrial broadcast television network to be intentionally assembled out of LPTV, or low-power television licensees, in the early- and mid-1980s.

It offered a 24-hour feed of mostly inexpensive programming, delivered to its affiliate stations, many owned and originally established by CA, via satellite. In this, it was a model for the American Independent Network (now succeeded by the rather similar programming of Urban America Television) and the somewhat more visible Pax Network, both of which also were largely seen around the U.S. on LPTV signals and on cable systems required to clear them. By the 1990s, most of CA's operations as a broadcast network were taken up by a successor, America One.