The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' subsidiary, United Television. Viacom turned it into a joint venture in 1996 after acquiring a 50% stake in the network, and subsequently purchased Chris-Craft's remaining stake in 2000. On December 31, 2005, UPN was kept by CBS Corporation, which was the new name for Viacom when it split into two separate companies. CBS Corporation and Time Warner jointly announced on January 24, 2006, that the companies would shut down UPN and competitor The WB to launch a new joint venture network later that year. UPN ceased broadcasting on September 15, 2006, with The WB following two days later. Select programs from both networks moved to the new network, The CW, when it launched on September 18, 2006.
The WB Television Network was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner and the Tribune Broadcasting subsidiary of the Tribune Company, with the former acting as controlling partner. The network aired programs targeting teenagers and young adults between 12 and 34, with its children's division, Kids' WB, geared toward children 6 to 12.
Television is one of the major mass media outlets in the United States. As of 2011, household ownership of television sets in the country is 96.7%, with approximately 114,200,000 American households owning at least one television set as of August 2013. The majority of households have more than one set. The peak ownership percentage of households with at least one television set occurred during the 1996–97 season, with 98.4% ownership. In 1948, 1 percent of U.S. households owned at least one television while 75 percent did by 1955, and by 1992, 60 percent of all U.S. households received cable television subscriptions.
WWHO is a television station licensed to Chillicothe, Ohio, United States, serving the Columbus area as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Manhan Media, Inc., which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of ABC/MyNetworkTV/Fox affiliate WSYX, for the provision of certain services. Sinclair also operates TBD station WTTE under a separate LMA with Cunningham Broadcasting; however, Sinclair effectively owns WTTE as the majority of Cunningham's stock is owned by the family of deceased group founder Julian Smith. The stations share studios on Dublin Road in Grandview Heights, while WWHO's transmitter is located in the Franklinton section of Columbus.
WOWT is a television station in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Gray Television. The station's studios are located at the Kiewit Plaza on Farnam Street near downtown Omaha, and its transmitter is located on a "tower farm" near North 72nd Street and Crown Point Avenue in north-central Omaha.
WVTV is a television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with The CW and owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. The station's studios are located on Calumet Road in the Park Place office park near the I-41/US 45 interchange on Milwaukee's northwest side; its transmitter is located on North Humboldt Boulevard in Milwaukee's Estabrook Park neighborhood as part of the Milwaukee PBS tower.
In the United States, there are three major traditional commercial broadcast television networks — NBC, CBS, and ABC — that due to their longevity and ratings success are informally referred to as the "Big Three." They dominated American television until the 1990s and are still considered major U.S. broadcast companies to this day.
WCBD-TV is a television station in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW Plus. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station has studios on West Coleman Boulevard in Mount Pleasant, and its transmitter is located in Awendaw, South Carolina.
An independent station is a broadcast station, usually a television station, not affiliated with a larger broadcast network. As such, it only broadcasts syndicated programs it has purchased; brokered programming, for which a third party pays the station for airtime; and local programs that it produces itself.
WTTV, licensed to Bloomington, Indiana, United States, and WTTK, licensed to Kokomo, Indiana, are television stations affiliated with CBS and serving the Indianapolis area. They are owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Fox affiliate WXIN. The stations share studios on Network Place in northwestern Indianapolis. WTTV's transmitter is located on State Road 252 in Trafalgar, while WTTK's transmitter sits on West 73rd Street on the northern outskirts of Indianapolis.
WTOG is a television station licensed to St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, serving as the CW affiliate for the Tampa Bay area. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group, and maintains studios on Northeast 105th Terrace in St. Petersburg, near the west end of the Gandy Bridge; its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida.
WLWC is a television station licensed to New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, serving the Providence, Rhode Island area as an affiliate of Court TV. Owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings, the station shares transmitter facilities with former sister WPXQ-TV on Champlin Hill in Ashaway, Rhode Island.
KHBS is a television station in Fort Smith, Arkansas, United States, affiliated with ABC and The CW Plus. It is simulcast full-time over satellite station KHOG-TV in Fayetteville. Owned by Hearst Television and jointly branded as "40/29", the two stations maintain studios on Ajax Avenue in Rogers, with a secondary studio and news bureau on North Albert Pike Avenue/North 42nd Street in Fort Smith. KHBS' transmitter is located on Cavanal Hill in northwestern Le Flore County, Oklahoma, while KHOG-TV's transmitter is based near Ed Edwards Road in rural northeastern Washington County, Arkansas, just southeast of the Fayetteville city limits.
KTEN is a television station licensed to Ada, Oklahoma, United States, serving the Sherman, Texas–Ada, Oklahoma market as an affiliate of NBC, The CW Plus, and ABC. The station is owned by Lockwood Broadcast Group, and maintains primary studios on High Point Circle in northwestern Denison, Texas, with secondary studios at the Ardmore Energy Center on Merrick Drive in northwestern Ardmore. Its transmitter is located along State Highway 7 in rural northeastern Johnston County, Oklahoma.
In January 2006, America's two "second-tier" television networks, UPN and The WB, announced they would both cease operations on September 15 and 17 respectively, and their operations would be transferred to a new joint-venture "fifth" network, The CW. Meanwhile, Fox Television Stations signed up with MyNetworkTV, a new "sixth" network owned by then-parent company News Corporation's Fox Entertainment Group.
The Financial Interest and Syndication Rules, widely known as the fin-syn rules, were a set of rules imposed by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States in 1970. The FCC sought to prevent the Big Three television networks from monopolizing the broadcast landscape by preventing them from owning any of the programming that they aired in prime time. The rules also prohibited networks from airing syndicated programming they had a financial stake in. The rules also led the networks to spin off their syndicated divisions, such as CBS' CBS Enterprises, which was renamed Viacom in 1971 and spun off, ABC's ABC Films, which was sold to its five executives and later renamed Worldvision Enterprises, and NBC's syndicated division NBC Films, which was sold to National Telefilm Associates (NTA) for $7.5 million, the latter two deals both occurring in March 1973.
In the United States, owned-and-operated television stations constitute only a portion of their parent television networks' station bodies, due to ownership limits imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Currently, the total number of television stations owned by any company can only reach a maximum of 39% of all U.S. households; in the past, the ownership limit was much lower, and was determined by a specific number of television stations rather than basing the limits on total market coverage.
In television broadcasting, the network era, also known as the Silver Age of television, refers to the period in American television history from the end of the first Golden Age of Television in the late 1950s to the beginning of the multi-channel transition in the mid-1980s. During this era, the Big Three television networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—dominated American television. This determination is established by institutional aspects that regularized television for the majority of the country, including color television, made standard by the late 1960s. As the arrival of new technologies emerged, it offered television viewers more choice and control. This eventually ended the network era and forced viewers to move into the multi-channel transition, leading to the post-network era and second Golden Age of Television.
Ancillary markets are non-theatrical markets for feature films, like home video, television, Pay Per View, VOD, Internet streaming, airlines and others.
The post-network era, also known as the post-broadcast era, is a concept that was popularized by Amanda D. Lotz. It denotes the period that followed an earlier network era, U.S.-American television's first institutional phase that started in the 1950s and ran through to the mid-1980s, and television's later multi-channel transition. It describes a period that saw the deterioration of the dominance of the Big Three television networks: ABC, CBS and NBC in the United States, and follows the creation of a wide variety of cable television channels that catered specifically to niche groups. The post-network era saw the development of networks that deliver a wider diversity of programming choice, less constraints on a consumers choice of medium, decentralization of the location of viewing, and freedom of choice over time of viewing. It is concurrent with the Second Golden Age of Television.
