It’s far far too high, individual tv stations for the most part don’t make ANY original content, except perhaps a local news report, say maybe 10-20 minutes a day (repeated several times). Original content is made by production companies, then sold to TV networks, who then provide it to the local stations.
Sure CNN and FoxNews are exceptions, but they have one 24 hour feed with local variations (CNN Asia etc)
I don’t think you can get any meaningful figure from number of tv stations, number of networks assuming 1/4 original might be much more realistic.
If I say “cite?” it doesn’t mean I’m not inclined to agree with you, because I am. But… cite? I agree it seems high, I’m just wondering if you have a better source than I can find for that impression.
Local network affiliates here in Portland do seem to do a bit more than that. There’s a morning fluff-news show (sometimes), a nightly local news (always), and an 11 o’clock news (always). Some have afterschool type shows (fluff news for kids!) thrown into the mix.
I just checked the schedule for the first local station I could think of (at katu.com), and they had 5 hours of original programming today, all “news” (though AM Northwest isn’t exactly hard-hitting journalism).
Yeah, I guess they do. Hey, why can’t you watch more than one stream at a time? For an immortal, omnipotent alien you don’t seem to have much imagination.