Patent 7826444 was granted and assigned to WideOrbit on November, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An apparatus includes a plurality of software-controlled broadcast stations, each station capable of operating in a leader mode or a follower mode during a simulcast. Each station in the follower mode is configured to broadcast the same programs as a station in the leader mode during common program periods, and to selectively broadcast programs that are different from those broadcast by the station in the leader mode during independent program periods.