Americans: Please explain the concept of a TV network to me

[Schnitte]

This may seem like an extremely basic question to an American, but from a European perspective it appears somewhat odd. European countries have a large number of TV stations, some of them public - either tax-funded or funded by means of a TV fee which the population pays directly to the TV station -, and some of them private, earning their revenue from advertising. The concept of TV networks is not present, however, and stations typically broadcast the same programming schedule everywhere in their area of distribution.

From what I gathered from online sources so far, the situation appears to me to be as follows: A network is not a TV station but rather a company which provides content to a large number of different TV stations. These stations are either owned directly by the same company that owns the network, or are affiliated to a network by means of a contract under which they pay money to the network in return for the right to broadcast the network’s program. In other words, the networks operate rather like time slots on the individual stations: Some slots are pre-booked for network content, and the station will air whatever is coming from the network at that time, and other slots are reserved for station content. The slots are, however, the same for all stations affilioated with the same network - it’s not like they show the same shows but they can shuffle them around freely over the course of the day; they would all show the network content at the same time (how does that work across time zones?), and use the same other times for independently produced content. Right so far?

So does that mean that the programming of the individual stations can be split into two parts - one of them content provided by the network, and the other content produced by the individual station itself? Does the station have to cover the entire range of the network’s content, or can it tune out of particular shows if it thinks they’re crap and replace them with own content? Does that mean that two people who live in different cities with different local NBC affiliates (for instance) actually get to see two totally different schedules, even though both of tham would say that they’re watching NBC?

And, also importantly: What exactly is the content that the local stations produce independently? I can see the point of local news coverage, for instance, but you can’t fill half a day with that. And a station which covers only one city or county, for instance, would hardly have the means to produce more elaborate productions. Is it all just syndicated stuff or films for which they purchased local broadcasting rights?

[HeyHomie]

@Schnitte

This may seem like an extremely basic question to an American, but from a European perspective it appears somewhat odd. European countries have a large number of TV stations, some of them public - either tax-funded or funded by means of a TV fee which the population pays directly to the TV station -, and some of them private, earning their revenue from advertising. The concept of TV networks is not present, however, and stations typically broadcast the same programming schedule everywhere in their area of distribution.

From what I gathered from online sources so far, the situation appears to me to be as follows: A network is not a TV station but rather a company which provides content to a large number of different TV stations. These stations are either owned directly by the same company that owns the network, or are affiliated to a network by means of a contract under which they pay money to the network in return for the right to broadcast the network’s program. In other words, the networks operate rather like time slots on the individual stations: Some slots are pre-booked for network content, and the station will air whatever is coming from the network at that time, and other slots are reserved for station content. The slots are, however, the same for all stations affilioated with the same network - it’s not like they show the same shows but they can shuffle them around freely over the course of the day; they would all show the network content at the same time (how does that work across time zones?), and use the same other times for independently produced content. Right so far?

So does that mean that the programming of the individual stations can be split into two parts - one of them content provided by the network, and the other content produced by the individual station itself? Does the station have to cover the entire range of the network’s content, or can it tune out of particular shows if it thinks they’re crap and replace them with own content? Does that mean that two people who live in different cities with different local NBC affiliates (for instance) actually get to see two totally different schedules, even though both of tham would say that they’re watching NBC?

And, also importantly: What exactly is the content that the local stations produce independently? I can see the point of local news coverage, for instance, but you can’t fill half a day with that. And a station which covers only one city or county, for instance, would hardly have the means to produce more elaborate productions. Is it all just syndicated stuff or films for which they purchased local broadcasting rights?

You’ve essentially nailed it.

My NBC affiliate is KSDK, out of St. Louis. My mother’s is WAND out of Decatur, Illinois. Both stations are in the same time zone (Central); this is important.

NBC gives both stations the same programs to air at the same times. The Today Show from 7:00 A.M. to 11:00 A.M. (or whatever), NBC Nightly News at 5:30 P.M., NBC’s Prime Time programming from 7:00 P.M. - 10:00 P.M., The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon at 10:37 P.M., and so on.

The rest of the programming day is given over to basically whatever the affiliate wants to air. Any network affiliate worth its salt will have an early-morning local news show, a local news show to air between the network nightly news and the beginning of prime time, and a local news show to air between the end of prime time and the beginning of late night programming.

So, for example, while I’m watching the local news out of Saint Louis at 6:00 P.M., Mammahomie is watching the local news out of Decatur at the same time.

Most of the programming is given over to syndicated shows (Dr. Phil, Ellen DeGeneres, syndicated game shows like The Family Feud or whatever, etc.). It will vary by affiliate, although there may be overlap. KSDK airs, I think, Wheel of Fortune after the local news, as does WAND, but that’s only by coincidence.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

The major networks, NBS, CBS, and ABC, produce close to 24 hours of content a day. They may skip a few hours in the middle of the night; they’ve certainly tried to make those times work but it never seems to last.

The basic schedule runs like this: morning news shows (3-4 hours); afternoon game shows, talk shows or soap operas (4-6 hours); nightly news (1/2 hour); prime time (3 hours); late-night shows (2-3 hours).

The network can only own a limited number of stations (IIRC, it’s currently 12). Since the networks are over 200 stations, the rest are called affiliates. Affiliates are allowed to program network shows at virtually any time they want. In basic commercial terms, deviating from the standard times for popular shows would be foolish and too many changes would encourage the network to find a new affiliate. But there are zillions of individual examples over the years. Late-night shows were often pushed back an hour or three for more lucrative programming. The last hour of the four-hour morning news block might be curtailed for a local news program.

Running a network TV station has been called a license to print money. Most large cities can afford to manufacture their own programming. The local news used to run for a half hour before the national news. Then it went to one hour. Then two. I believe some cities went to three hours. They can be stuffed with more commercial time than a network program allows and thus make more money.

In addition to news, most cities have their own morning talk shoes for local news, celebrities, and features. Where else would people get this local-focused content if not from local stations? Over the history of television, just about every form of programming that a network might put on has been copied by an affiliate. They aren’t usually as good as network shows, but a) a lot of network shows aren’t very good; b) people have lower expectations for local shows; and c) people will watch crap. Local shows are often made fun of, but they are generally much higher in quality than what fills local independent and cable stations and people will watch them.

If better quality is wanted for your schedule, a station can run syndicated programming. Networks used to own all their programs, then they were barred from doing so, and recently they’ve been allowed to again. Production companies, often associated with large movie studios, but with many independents, made the programs and sold them to the networks. Then they would bundle these programs and sell them as packages to individual stations in a process called syndication. This is incredibly lucrative: the biggest names, like Seinfeld and Friends, went for over a billion dollars. Traditionally, the affiliate could show these reruns as many times as they wanted until the contract ran out. Seeing a popular show four times a day wasn’t all that unusual.

Original programming of every possible kind is also available through syndication. The hour between 7 and 8 (East Coast time) is almost invariably for syndicated game shows or sometimes sitcom reruns. The major talk shows, like Oprah or Ellen, are syndicated. Star Trek: The Next Generation was an original syndicated show because networks were dubious about bringing it back.

Movies used to be a major syndicated product before cable took over. Dozens of hours in a schedule could be filled by old movies, which amazed the studios by being incredibly popular instead of old junk. Every studio finally put together huge libraries of their movies to sell in syndication, and those packages became worth new billions.

Sports is inherently local, and all major leagues cities provide local coverage of games in addition to network coverage of them. In some places, college and/or high school sports are just as important.

And on and on. When you have 168 hours every week to fill, you get creative. Every individual affiliate runs a slightly different schedule than every other, even the O and O’s (network owned and operated) stations. The major shows are nearly universal, though.

This all is an outgrowth of a very similar set-up from the early days of radio. The U.S. allowed anybody who wanted to start a radio station to do so. Commercials can along a bit later, and were fought vigorously by the government and highbrows in an instantly losing battle. Stations realized that they could get better quality and more listeners by programming one set of shows out of a central location. NBC was first; CBS a couple of years later. NBC was so powerful it had two networks - the red and the blue. They had to sell off the blue network and that became ABC. Other networks have tried to match them but few have had success. FOX is a major network, but it doesn’t have the all-day nature of the big three, so its affiliates need to come up with more programming of their own.

It’s a weird socialistic version of capitalism in the American tradition making up your rules as you go along.

[HeyHomie]

I’d like to add, some network affiliates will preempt national coverage for things like local sports. The local NBC affiliate back in central Illinois would often preempt NBC soap operas for, and I swear I’m not making this up, high school basketball. Until central Illinois soap fans raised enough hell about it.

Similarly, a few months ago St. Louis’ CBS affiliate chose to broadcast a football (not the kind of football the OP is thinking of) game instead of regular CBS shows. I was rather livid at missing The Big Bang Theory (though they did re-broadcast it at like 2:00 A.M. or something a couple of days later - thank Og for DVR’s). I image fans of CSI: Ypsilanti, who by and large don’t know how to operate a DVR, were beside themselves.

[Aquadementia]

You know how there are McDonalds restaurants everywhere?
They are all individually owned, but they are all McDonalds.

[Tom_Tildrum]

To add a little to what has already been said:

Network programming will typically run in the evenings (“prime time”) for three hours (for example, from 8 to 11 on the east coast). The FOX network only programs two hours in the evening (from 8 to 10); it became a network much later than the others, and the stations that it hooked together generally had an entrenched local news program whose gimmick was that it began an hour earlier than that of the network stations.

In the late afternoon to early evening, the stations that belong to the networks will typically broadcast an ungodly amount of local news, with a half-hour national news program from the network dropped in somewhere around 6:30 or 7.

The networks also offer national morning programming from roughly 6-10 am, which consists of fluffy news, celebrities, cooking, and other light “wake-up” programming. The individual stations will be allotted five-minute segments for local news every hour or so.

As for time zones, recorded network content generally begins at 8 pm on each coast and 7 pm in between. Someone else can explain why; that could be a thread topic in itself.

Also, to unpack one of Exapno’s remarks, as to sports: The major league sports that gets aired on the network station vary by locality, but generally they vary according to a master deal that the major leagues negotiate with the networks, not the local stations themselves. Local stations will add on their own “sports talk” shows. A lot of local sports gets carried on cable as well.

[friedo]

@Exapno_Mapcase

The major networks, NBS, CBS, and ABC, produce close to 24 hours of content a day. They may skip a few hours in the middle of the night; they’ve certainly tried to make those times work but it never seems to last.

The basic schedule runs like this: morning news shows (3-4 hours); afternoon game shows, talk shows or soap operas (4-6 hours); nightly news (1/2 hour); prime time (3 hours); late-night shows (2-3 hours).

This isn’t quite accurate; daytime game shows, talk shows sitcom reruns, and so on are syndicated to individual stations. They are sometimes associated with a particular network and sometimes not, but it’s the individual stations that decide when to air them They don’t come from a live network feed. Flagship soap operas are transmitted by the network but may be tape-delayed at the station if they don’t want to air them at the specified time.

The three majors broadcast their network feeds early in the morning for morning shows, half an hour (6:30pm Eastern) for national news, three hours for prime time (8-11pm Eastern, 7-11 on Sunday) and two hours for late night (11:35 to 1:35 Eastern, sometimes delayed by local affiliates.) In total the major networks provide around 80-90 hours of broadcast content per week.

FOX isn’t quite in the same league, providing only two hours of primetime (8-10pm) during the week and three on Sunday (8-11pm). FOX doesn’t have any national morning shows, broadcast soaps, late night, or national newscast.

[HeyHomie]

@friedo

This isn’t quite accurate; daytime game shows, talk shows sitcom reruns, and so on are syndicated to individual stations. They are sometimes associated with a particular network and sometimes not, but it’s the individual stations that decide when to air them

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t The Price Is Right (CBS) the only non-syndicated game show these days?

[Belowjob2.0]

http://www.museum.tv/eotv/ownership.htm

To prevent local market monopoly by a single company, the FCC has usually allowed only one television station per owner/company in a single market.

Historically, the FCC has also imposed national limits on television station ownership and has placed restrictions on the television station licensee owning other media outlets in the market, such as a cable company, a newspaper, or a telephone service. At one time, the number of stations owned by a single entity was limited to seven stations, five of which could be VHF channels 2 through 13. The limit was later raised to allow control of 12 stations by a single owner, provided the potential audience covered by the stations’ signals collectively was not more than 25% of the national population. The impact of that rule change effectively limited the big networks from extensive expansion because their stations were all located in very large markets, bringing them close to the 25% audience cap already. There are advocates for eliminating all television station ownership restrictions now, but such a radical change is unlikely.

http://transition.fcc.gov/ownership/rules.html

The National Television Ownership Limit - In 2004, Congress enacted legislation that permits a single entity to own any number of television stations on a nationwide basis as long as the station group collectively reaches no more than 39% of the national TV audience. The statute also excluded the national television cap from the ownership rules required to be reviewed in the quadrennial review proceedings. Accordingly, the national television cap was not under review in the 2006 quadrennial review proceeding. The Commission did, however, consider whether it could review the 50% UHF discount, which applies a 50% discount in calculating a UHF station’s audience reach for purposes of applying the national television ownership cap. The Commission concluded, in the Quadrennial Review Order, that the 2004 legislation precludes it from reviewing the 50% UHF discount in quadrennial review proceedings.

[friedo]

@Tom_Tildrum

As for time zones, recorded network content generally begins at 8 pm on each coast and 7 pm in between. Someone else can explain why; that could be a thread topic in itself.

There are four main timezones in the US (not counting Alaska and Hawaii.) In the old days when broadcast networks were stitched together with AT&T microwave transmission links, it was a lot more practical to have two feeds instead of four. One for Eastern/Central, and one for Mountain/Pacific.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@Aquadementia

You know how there are McDonalds restaurants everywhere?
They are all individually owned, but they are all McDonalds.

Approximately 15% of McDonald’s restaurants are owned and operated by McDonald’s Corporation directly.

Same deal as the stations.

@friedo

The three majors broadcast their network feeds early in the morning for morning shows, half an hour (6:30pm Eastern) for national news, three hours for prime time (8-11pm Eastern, 7-11 on Sunday) and two hours for late night (11:35 to 1:35 Eastern, sometimes delayed by local affiliates.) In total the major networks provide around 80-90 hours of broadcast content per week.

This leaves off the block of morning shows: The Today Show; Good Morning America, and CBS This Morning. Sports feeds on the weekends, along with Sunday morning talk shows, are also provided by the networks.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

**Schnitte **–advertising funds it.

Except for our own Government funded network, PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service.
Which is mostly educational.

[amanset]

It isn’t completely unheard of in Europe. From what I understand the UK’s ITV is set up like an American Network.

ITV (TV network)

[friedo]

@HeyHomie

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t The Price Is Right (CBS) the only non-syndicated game show these days?

No, Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are syndicated (as a single package.) But there are far fewer daytime game shows than there used to be.

[friedo]

@Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor

Except for our own Government funded network, PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service.
Which is mostly educational.

And mostly not government-funded. And not really a network in the above sense.

[kopek]

Note: Our stations are under certain requirements to broadcast over the air on digital stations. Someone will probably jump in and explain it better but more of our channels are “triplets”. In the case of NBC, locally that is 11.1 but that entity also owns 11.2 and 11.3 as well. Someone explained it all to me once and all I got was a Hell of a headache. But its a difference unique enough to the United States that I wanted to point it out.

@Schnitte

So does that mean that the programming of the individual stations can be split into two parts - one of them content provided by the network, and the other content produced by the individual station itself? Does the station have to cover the entire range of the network’s content, or can it tune out of particular shows if it thinks they’re crap and replace them with own content?

OK – some of this has changed/is changing since digital came along but as a rule stations are required to carry the network feed during certain hours and can do their own thing the rest of the time. Forty years ago there were a lot of local game shows and kids shows but most of that is long gone for their primary “network” station although some are trying it again on their “.2 and .3” stations. It doesn’t matter how much the program sucks or offends your community - if the contract says “netwrok from 7pm to 11pm” and the show falls in that time slot, you have to run it or risk some serious fines and punishments.

@Schnitte

And, also importantly: What exactly is the content that the local stations produce independently? I can see the point of local news coverage, for instance, but you can’t fill half a day with that. And a station which covers only one city or county, for instance, would hardly have the means to produce more elaborate productions. Is it all just syndicated stuff or films for which they purchased local broadcasting rights?

And it would surprise you just how much news some cities broadcast. Several of our network channels will run local news from 4am to 9am - some repeats of earlier hours but some fresh every couple of hours. Add to that an hour of local news at noon, an hour or more around 6pm and a half hour at 11pm and the station is hopping to make it all day in and day out. On the non-network stations an affiliate will own you will often find a lot of local interest type programs and a lot of “retro” shows and movies. Little news but again a lot of shopping and infomercials.

And again – evolving even as we speak. A lot of small local hosted-horror shows (http://www.theitsaliveshow.com/) are getting picked up as fillers and some locally produced kids and game shows. But this “reverse engineering” has just started.

I believe some networks are forming secondary stations for affiliates to use for their “.2 and .3” channels (MyTV may be a NBC property or partner) but a lot of this is new.

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

At a higher level, there is a major reason for this difference: the vast size of America compared to European countries (except Russia). Most European are so small that a single station, or a few of them, can cover the entire country. But in the USA, it would take hundreds of stations to cover the entire country. So that led to the formation of networks to reach the whole country.

[LSLGuy]

ETA: Must type faster. t-bonham@scc.net wasn’t there when I got started.

It’s also worth pointing out that the network system really got underway back in the 1930s with radio. Then in the 40s/50s the concept and regulations were expanded into TV.

So it was ultimately a reaction to the desire by content providers to broadcast to the whole country when it was technologically impossible for a single transmitter to reach an audience spread across 3000 miles East to West and 1200 miles North to South. So centralized production and decentralized distribution.

And there was (/is) a countervailing desire by the authorities to prevent national-level monopoly suppliers of information.

The combo of defining both owned and affiliate stations and restrictions against owning / controlling multiple stations in a single market or transmitter coverage area was the compromise result of these two forces.

That was then. As to now …

In today’s world of pay-cable transmission, internet-based streaming, smart devices, and hundreds of channels-worth of content by thousands of content providers this system would never be created from scratch if it didn’t already exist. But today it serves as a broadcast information / entertainment backbone if you will, free to all receivers.

The combination of some degree of mandated public service content, zero cost to all end consumers, and national reach along with prevention of Berlusconi-style media empire monopolies has served the public interest surprisingly well. Which is why, beyond simple inertia, it still exists today.

[Kent_Clark]

It loks like just about everything has been answered except for this.

@Schnitte

Does the station have to cover the entire range of the network’s content, or can it tune out of particular shows if it thinks they’re crap and replace them with own content?

The local station contract with the network allows for a certain amount of opting out of network programming during the year. The amount varies among individual stations, but it’s normally not a huge number.

In addition, some stations will simply decline to carry a program. While the Today show, for example, is actually four hours long, some stations don’t choose to carry the later hours, running their own locally produced or syndicated program. There are a few instances of local stations actually finding a network program objectionable and refusing to run it.

When Saturday Night Live first premiered in 1975, famously only 148 out of 219 NBC stations chose to broadcast it.

Of course any network affiliate that refuses to “clear” its network’s programs may find the network canceling its contract with that affiliate.

[johnpost]

@kopek

In the case of NBC, locally that is 11.1 but that entity also owns 11.2 and 11.3 as well. Someone explained it all to me once and all I got was a Hell of a headache. But its a difference unique enough to the United States that I wanted to point it out.

OK – some of this has changed/is changing since digital came along but as a rule stations are required to carry the network feed during certain hours and can do their own thing the rest of the time.

digital broadcasts can have subchannels (n.1, n.2, n.3). it is up to the station if they want to carry subchannels and what is on them. each channel is a fixed amount of data, that could be split into lesser definition packages.

there are some stations with no subchannels, only the network during its program hours. there are stations with 1 or 2 subchannels all day long.