Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented entertainment programming. It rebranded as i: Independent Television on July 1, 2005, converting into a general entertainment network featuring recent and older acquired programs. The network adopted its identity as Ion Television on January 29, 2007, and airs programming in daily binge blocks of one program, usually acquired procedural dramas. The network also carries some holiday specials and films before Christmas.
An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of direct response television (DRTV), they are often program-length commercials, and are typically 28:30 or 58:30 minutes in length. Infomercials are also known as paid programming. This phenomenon started in the United States, where infomercials were typically shown overnight, outside peak prime time hours for commercial broadcasters. Some television stations chose to air infomercials as an alternative to the former practice of signing off, while other channels air infomercials 24 hours a day. Some stations also choose to air infomercials during the daytime hours, mostly on weekends, to fill in for unscheduled network or syndicated programming. By 2009, most infomercial spending in the U.S. occurred outside of the traditional overnight hours. Stations in most countries around the world have instituted similar media structures. The infomercial industry is worth over $200 billion.
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.
KNLC is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, which broadcasts the classic television network MeTV. It is owned by Weigel Broadcasting, which leases its second digital subchannel to the locally based New Life Evangelistic Center (NLEC), the station's founding and former owner, to broadcast religious programming. KNLC's transmitter is located near Hillsboro-House Springs Road in House Springs, Missouri.
In broadcast programming, dayparting is the practice of dividing the broadcast day into several parts, in which a different type of radio programming or television show appropriate for that time period is aired. Television programs are most often geared toward a particular demography, and what the target audience typically engages in at that time.
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.
Television in Canada officially began with the sign-on of the nation's first television stations in Montreal and Toronto in 1952. As with most media in Canada, the television industry, and the television programming available in that country, are strongly influenced by media in the United States, perhaps to an extent not seen in any other major industrialized nation. As a result, the government institutes quotas for "Canadian content". Nonetheless, new content is often aimed at a broader North American audience, although the similarities may be less pronounced in the predominantly French-language province of Quebec.
WBNA is an independent television station in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, owned by local charismatic megachurch Evangel World Prayer Center. The station's offices are located on Fern Valley Road in Okolona, and its transmitter is located off Oakcrest Drive in Shepherdsville. As such, WBNA is the only full-power television station in the Louisville market whose transmitter facilities are not based at the Kentuckiana tower farm in Floyds Knobs, Indiana.
Christian Television Network (CTN) is an American non-profit broadcast television network of small owned-and-operated stations (O&O) that broadcasts religious programming. It is based in Largo, Florida, and the flagship station is WCLF channel 22, which signed on the air in the Tampa Bay region in 1979. It is now available on DirecTV channel 376, Dish Network channel 262, and Glorystar channel 117. The channel was started to produce and broadcast programming to teach and encourage Christian living. It was founded by Robert D'Andrea, who died in January 2022.
A timeshift channel is a television channel carrying time-delayed reruns of its "parent" channel's programming. This channel runs alongside their parent: the term "timeshift" does not refer to a network broadcasting at a later time to reflect a local time zone, unless the parent is also available. Often the timeshift channel's branding and advertising will be the same as that of the parent, with the channel number and respective timing being the only distinction between the two, but some, such as Channel 4 +1 in the United Kingdom and TVNZ 1+1 in New Zealand, will overlay a different digital on-screen graphic to distinguish the two channels. A few channels, like Film4 +1 in the United Kingdom, do not carry a digital on-screen graphic on its regular channel or its timeshift channel.
The WB 100+ Station Group was a national programming service of The WB—owned by the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner, the Tribune Company, and group founder and longtime WB network president Jamie Kellner—intended primarily for American television markets ranked #100 and above by Nielsen Media Research estimates. Operating from September 21, 1998 to September 17, 2006, The WB 100+ comprised an affiliate group that was initially made exclusively of individually branded cable television channels serving areas that lacked availability for a locally based WB broadcast affiliate and supplied a nationalized subfeed consisting of WB network and syndicated programs; in the network's waning years, the WB 100+ group began maintaining primary affiliations on full-power and low-power stations in certain markets serviced by the feed.
The CW Plus is a secondary national broadcast television syndication service feed of The CW. It is intended primarily for American television markets ranked #100 and above by Nielsen Media Research estimates. The service is primarily carried on digital subchannels and multichannel subscription television providers, although it maintains primary affiliations on full-power and low-power stations in certain markets.
A graveyard slot is a time period in which a television audience is very small compared to other times of the day, and therefore broadcast programming is considered far less important. Graveyard slots usually displayed in the early morning hours of each day, when most people are asleep.
Brokered programming is a form of broadcast content in which the show's producer pays a radio or television station for air time, rather than exchanging programming for pay or the opportunity to play spot commercials. A brokered program is typically not capable of garnering enough support from advertisements to pay for itself, and may be controversial, esoteric or an advertisement in itself.
Weekend Marketplace is a two-hour block of paid programming airing on Fox that debuted on January 3, 2009, replacing the 4Kids TV cartoon block due to the termination of the network's time lease agreement with 4Kids Entertainment. The block, which airs on Saturday mornings, is programmed solely with infomercials, which usually air on networks and broadcast television stations during late night and early morning timeslots; such programming, however, has not previously been scheduled on a regular basis by a major broadcast television network.
The scheduling of television programming in North America must cope with different time zones. The United States has six time zones, with further variation in the observance of daylight saving time. Canada also has six time zones. Mexico has four time zones. This requires broadcast and pay television networks in each country to shift programs in time to show them in different regions.
KQSL is a religious television station in Cloverdale, California, United States, which is a broadcast partner of the Total Living Network. The station is owned by One Ministries, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Santa Rosa, California. KQSL's transmitter is located west of Laytonville, California.
Ion Plus is an American free linear television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company that formerly operated as a broadcast television network until February 28, 2021. The network originally launched in 2007 as Ion Life, maintaining a format featuring lifestyle programming focused on health and wellness, cooking, home decor, and travel. With expanded cable carriage, in 2019, Ion Media converted the network into a general entertainment format that matched that of parent network Ion Television, featuring day-long marathons of various drama series.
Heartland is an American country music-oriented digital broadcast television network owned by Get After It Media and broadcast out of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Launched on April 16, 2012, the network began as a revival of The Nashville Network (TNN); the original incarnation (now known as Paramount Network) existed as a basic cable and satellite television network from March 7, 1983, to September 24, 2000.
