Logic dictates that there was no reason to uplink a TV station (with the exception of superstations).
What makes you think there were many stations that must have been uplinking?
ABC Affiliates on Ku-Band (1998)
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What makes you think there were many stations that must have been uplinking?
+harshness the many stations that get uplinking are for certain newsfeeds & backhauls, ABC feeds their newsfeeds through their affiliate news service "NewsOne" as well as their Daily Electronic Feeds (DEF) or Electronic news gathering (ENG) and the satellite news gathering feeds (SNG) through "ABSAT".
There's a difference between occasionally sending up a news story by special arrangement and having a station uplinked. It is like dial-up versus always-on. You're assuming that every station had the facilities for uplinking.
While a lot of money was spent on ENG rigs with uplink facilities, most of time they weren't used for the network but rather as a way to get what appeared to be "live shots" back to the studio for local play.
My local ABC station (KATU) chose to spend most of their money on buying two helicopters (one of which was never outfitted and went down in a Christmas tree harvesting accident) instead of a satellite rig.
Of the content that was sent to the mother ship, how much time do you imagine that consumed? Would the package be longer than three minutes?
While a lot of money was spent on ENG rigs with uplink facilities, most of time they weren't used for the network but rather as a way to get what appeared to be "live shots" back to the studio for local play.
My local ABC station (KATU) chose to spend most of their money on buying two helicopters (one of which was never outfitted and went down in a Christmas tree harvesting accident) instead of a satellite rig.
Of the content that was sent to the mother ship, how much time do you imagine that consumed? Would the package be longer than three minutes?
+harshness Sometimes, it will be but some certain news stories will be previewed on there before they go on the local affiliate's newscasts.
I think you may be laboring under the false assumption that affiliates were sharing packages with other affiliates. Its much too late now to tell but I'd bet that wasn't happening (unless the stations had joint ownership in which case they may have had their own methods of sharing packages). Microwave was/is a pretty popular alternative and it didn't/doesn't require renting satellite time.
Reasoning that something must have been happening because it could is not sound logic. You first have to establish that there was a need. Businesses aren't inclined to go out of their way to do things that don't serve a purpose.
+harshness Whenever there's a news event or when news breaks there's often a need to uplink via satellite newstrucks.
How often did that happen? Once a week? Once a month? Never?
The ability to do something should never be confused with it being a regular part of the daily schedule.
Back in the late 1990s, breaking news wasn't something that happened every day like it seems to be today. Back then, it meant that something worth chasing down had happened. Now it just means that they've got some wireless phone video to share with you.
Network feeds are downlinks. It is all about the direction that the feed is traveling. If there are 200 or so affiliate stations, maybe only one or two a day were uplinking stories to the mother ship for the national news. I would also point out that feeds were delivered on a schedule and not interactively.
Back when, the networks offered content for perhaps seven hours a day. There was a morning show, the evening national news, prime time and a late night show. Most markets would have nothing of interest to offer ABC from one month to the next. When they did, it was by special arrangement rather than a daily feed.
The relative importance of something is related to how often it happened and when it comes to stations uplinking to the mother ship, that's not something that happens very often (if ever). You've attributed considerably more importance to the use of satellite technology than it deserves. Downlinking feeds was commonplace just as receiving OTA broadcasts was commonplace but the back channel (uplinking towards the network) wasn't nearly as active as you imagine.
+harshness Well as for the stories being uplinked for the national news weren't there any affiliate or regional feeds?, I know that the "NewsOne" feeds went by several different names. (Southwest, Pacific, Upper-Midwest, Midwest, Northwest, West, Southeast, Florida feeds I & II, East, Northeast etc...)
I don't recall much in the way of regional news packages from 20 years ago but I'm in a geographically large DMA. In tightly clustered DMAs, I imagine that regional content was probably transported on video tape or via microwave.
Regional feeds may have had more to do with time zones than sharing content within the region.
The important point is that because a facility existed, it doesn't mean it saw continuous or even significant use.
Regional sporting events were (and still are) typically handled by the third party that produced the content rather than through an affiliate station.
+harshness well other than that, as mentioned earlier WSB Atlanta and flagship affiliate KABC Los Angeles were also being uplinked on Primestar (GE-2 Ku (W7)).
I've always excepted the superstations. Two out of more than two hundred certainly doesn't rise to the rank of notable.
Remember also that pretty much any time one saw a news story that had a national correspondent, it probably wasn't locally produced.
+harshness Also, as mentioned earlier KOMO Seattle (was also the PT24 West Coast ABC affiliate on C-Band/DirecTV/Dish), KXLY Spokane, WXYZ Detroit, WKBW Buffalo as well as WCVB Boston were uplinked on Anik E2 Ku (A2). ExpressVu (Dish Network Canada) and Starchoice shared the satellite space on there, before ExpressVu moved to the newly-launched Nimiq 1 (N1) the following year.
Those were the Canadian DBS services (ExpressVu and Starchoice), Anik E2 Ku (A2) could only be accessible in the Northern part of the United States, It was for Canadian programming and channels which were superior to American TV (CBC, CTV, Global, CityTV, YTV, History Television, TSN, Family Channel Canada, TreehouseTV, MuchMusic, Superchannel, Teletoon, The Movie Network, Bravo Canada, Showcase, CBC Newsworld etc...).
Well I also forgot to point out that WMUR's newscasts were also being simulcast on W27BL/W16BC (WMUR-LP) in Berlin and Littleton, NH respectively, both of which were low-powered Fox stations.
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Translators have rarely (if ever) employed satellite to get their signal out. Before using high speed data lines, they typically used terrestrial connections such as antennas on tall hills or microwave.
In Oregon, the Portland stations have repeaters that are over mountain ranges and great distances (from SW Washington to the southern border of Oregon) from the main towers and they didn't use satellite.
I'm not sure how this supports your position that Ku band played a significant part in local TV thirty years ago.
Well for ABC and other networks, the news feeds from affiliates generally depended on the time of day, as I have mentioned earlier.
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