The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The headquarters of NBC is in New York City at the Comcast Building. NBC also has offices in Chicago at the NBC Tower.
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainment Group division of Paramount Global and is one of the company's three flagship subsidiaries, along with namesake Paramount Pictures and MTV.
Fox Broadcasting Company, LLC, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by the Fox Entertainment division of Fox Corporation, headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan. Fox hosts additional offices at the Fox Network Center in Los Angeles and at the Fox Media Center in Tempe, Arizona. Launched as a competitor to the Big Three television networks on October 9, 1986, Fox went on to become the most successful attempt at a fourth television network. It is also known to push the boundaries of what could be shown on a broadcasting network, as evident with shows like Married... with Children, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and That '70s Show. It is also the first network of its kind to popularize adult animation which lead to the creation of Adult Swim years later. It was also the highest-rated free-to-air network in the 18–49 demographic from 2004 to 2012 and 2020 to 2021, and was the most-watched American television network in total viewership during the 2007–08 season.
In American television in 1996, notable events included television show debuts, finales, cancellations, and channel initiations, closures and rebrandings, as well as information about controversies and disputes.
"Saturday-morning cartoon" is a colloquial term for the original animated series and live-action programming that was typically scheduled on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the United States on the "Big Three" television networks. The genre was a tradition from broadly the mid-1960s to mid-2010s; over time its popularity declined, in the face of changing cultural norms, increased competition from formats available at all times, and heavier media regulations. In the last years of the genre's existence, Saturday-morning and Sunday-morning cartoons were primarily created and aired on major networks to meet "educational and informational" (E/I) requirements. Minor television networks, in addition to the non-commercial PBS in some markets, continued to air animated programming on Saturday and Sunday while partially meeting those mandates.
4Kids TV was an American television programming block and Internet-based video on demand children's network operated by 4Kids Entertainment. It originated as a weekly block on Saturday mornings on the Fox network, which was created out of a four-year agreement reached on January 22, 2002, between 4Kids Entertainment and Fox to lease the five-hour Saturday morning time slot occupied by the network's existing children's program block, Fox Kids. It was targeted at children aged 7–11. The 4Kids TV block was part of the Fox network schedule, although it was syndicated to other broadcast television stations in certain markets where a Fox affiliate declined to air it.
Paramount Media Networks is an American mass media division of Paramount Global that oversees the operations of its television channels and online brands. The division was originally founded as MTV Networks in 1984, named after the MTV cable network. It would be known under this name until 2011; when it would be thereafter known as Viacom Media Networks until 2019; and ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks until 2022.
ABC Kids was an American Saturday morning children's programming block that aired on ABC from September 13, 1997 to August 27, 2011. It featured a mixture of animated and live-action series from Walt Disney Television Animation and Disney Channel, aimed at children between the ages of 6 and 14. This was the only time Disney Channel content aired on over-the-air television in the United States.
Discovery Kids is a brand name owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Starting as a television block within Discovery Channel, the brand expanded as a separate television channel in October 1996. Discovery Kids on NBC was an American children's programming block that aired on NBC from October 5, 2002 to September 2, 2006. Most of Discovery Kids' worldwide channels have been either rebranded or shut down, but the brand still exists as a website for children's activities and consumer products.
Fox Kids was an American children's programming block and branding for a slate of international children's television channels. Originally a joint venture between the Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox) and its affiliated stations, it was later owned by Fox Family Worldwide.
Nickelodeon Games and Sports for Kids was an American cable television network that was part of MTV Networks' suite of digital cable channels. The channel was available to all digital cable providers and satellite provider Dish Network. With its focus on classic Nickelodeon game shows, Nick GAS was essentially a children's version of Game Show Network and ESPN.
KCBS-TV, branded CBS Los Angeles, is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside independent outlet KCAL-TV. The two stations share studios at the Radford Studio Center on Radford Avenue in the Studio City section of Los Angeles; KCBS-TV's transmitter is located on the western side of Mount Wilson near Occidental Peak.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, during the network era of American television, there were three commercial broadcast television networks – NBC, CBS, ABC – that due to their longevity and ratings success are informally referred to as the "Big Three". The three networks' dominance was interrupted with the launch of Fox in 1986, leading it to join them as one of the expanded "Big Four", while the viewership shares of all the major broadcast networks declined over the following years.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Television, previously known as MGM/UA Television, is the television studio arm of American media company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) specializing in broadcast syndication and the production and distribution of television shows and miniseries.
Discovery Kids on NBC was an American children's programming block that aired on NBC from October 5, 2002 to September 2, 2006. The block was produced under a time-lease agreement with Discovery Kids, and features a mixture of live-action and animated series originated on the cable network that met educational programming requirements defined by the Federal Communications Commission.
ABC Family Worldwide was a subsidiary of the Disney ABC Networks division of The Walt Disney Company that operates American basic cable channel ABC Family and manages the programming libraries of Disney's former subsidiaries BVS Entertainment and Fox Kids/Jetix.
Nickelodeon is an American basic cable and satellite television network that is part of the Nickelodeon Group, a unit of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global, which focuses on programs for children and teenagers ages 2 to 17 years old.
The broadcast of educational children's programming by terrestrial television stations in the United States is mandated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), under regulations colloquially referred to as the Children's Television Act (CTA), the E/I rules, or the Kid Vid rules. Since 1997, all full-power and Class A low-power broadcast television stations have been required to broadcast at least three hours per-week of programs that are specifically designed to meet the educational and informative (E/I) needs of children aged 16 and younger. There are also regulations on advertising in broadcast and cable television programming targeting children 12 and younger.
Between 1994 and 1996, a wide-ranging series of network affiliation switches took place in media markets across the United States as the result of a multimillion-dollar deal between Fox and New World Communications which was announced on May 23, 1994. The Fox–New World agreement, which saw twelve stations owned by New World change affiliations to Fox, initiated some of the most sweeping changes in American broadcasting history. This deal, and the ancillary deals that followed, created a domino effect and presented a wide-ranging series of ramifications that have impacted local broadcasting up to the present day.
Noggin was an American edutainment brand that launched on February 2, 1999. It was co-founded by MTV Networks and Sesame Workshop. It started out as a cable television channel and a website, both centered around the concepts of imagination, creativity, and education. From 2015 to 2024, Noggin was a streaming service.
