TV Networks: Where were the "owned-and-operated" stations?

Factual Questions
1

I was explaining to my millennial son the basic idea of network TV from the Golden Age through the rise of cable. I told him how networks had only a small number of television stations that they owned and operated directly; the rest were “affiliate” stations, technically independent local stations that carried network programming.

He asked me where the “owned-and-operated’s” were. Having heard there were six of these, I replied they were in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles… And then I entered the realm of guesswork.

I’m fairly sure San Francisco is major enough, but what about St.Louis? Dallas/Fort Worth? Boston? Denver?

Anybody have a handy link? (Believe me, I’ve looked…)

2

Well, in 1985 when Capital Cities announced it planned to buy ABC, the network owned “television stations in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit.” That article mentions that the FCC limited ownership to no more than twelve stations and no more than 25% of the households in the country.

3

Another one. When GE bought RCA in 1985, the latter owned five NBC stations.

4

here is an article

there were some affiliate stations that were affiliated with 2 and 3 networks.

5

Thanks, guys!:smiley:

6

There’s a lot more detail, and I won’t even try to get into the problems the DuMont Network had, but here’s a brief summary.

Until 1985 all three networks were limited to owning five VHF and two UHF stations. Each owned stations in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

CBS owned stations in Philadelphia and St. Louis.
ABC owned stations in Detroit and San Francisco.
NBC owned stations in Washington and Philadelphia (later Cleveland.)

NBC also owned UHF stations in Buffalo and New Haven, CT, while CBS owned UHF stations in Hartford, CT and Milwaukee. Because of UHF’s technical limitations and its unpopularity during the 1950’s, both networks gave up those stations.