Network affiliate - Citizendia

For affiliates in the corporate world see affiliate (commerce)

In broadcasting, a network affiliate (or affiliated station) is a local broadcaster which carries some or all of the programme line-up of a television or radio network but is owned by someone other than the owner of the network. An affiliate is a commercial entity with a relationship with a peer or a larger entity For the band see Broadcast (band Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and/or Video signals which transmit A television network is a distribution network for Television content whereby a central operation provides programming for many Television stations A radio network is a network system which distributes programming to multiple stations simultaneously or slightly delayed for the purpose of extending total

In most American commercial television networks, a few large stations in key markets are stations that are owned-and-operated (O&O) by the network itself, while smaller markets are served by affiliates. For instance, New York broadcasters WCBS-TV, WNBC, WABC-TV and WPBS-TV are not affiliates (they are network-owned, or in PBS's case, a "PBS member station" as that network's structure differs from the commercial O&O + affiliates model). New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous WCBS-TV, channel 2 is the flagship station of the CBS television network located in New York City. WNBC Channel 4 is the flagship station of the NBC television network located in New York City. WABC-TV, channel 7 is the flagship station of the Walt Disney Company -owned American Broadcasting Company, located in New York City. WPBS is a PBS member station in New York state serving Watertown / Potsdam as well as south western Quebec and most of eastern/southeastern The Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS) is a Non-profit Public broadcasting Television service with 354 member TV stations in the In Canada, most television stations, regardless of market size, are now O&Os of their respective networks, with only a few true affiliates remaining. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation originally relied on a large number of privately-owned affiliates to disseminate its radio and television programming. However, since the 1960s, most of the CBC Television affiliates have been replaced by network owned and operated stations or retransmitters CBC Radio stations are now entirely O&O. CBC Television is a Canadian English language Television network. CBC Radio is the Radio division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

While network-owned stations will normally carry the full programming schedule of the originating network, an affiliate is independently-owned and typically under no obligation to do so. Affiliated stations often buy supplementary programming from another source, such as a syndicator or another television network which does not have coverage in the station's broadcast area, in addition to the programming they carry from their primary network affiliation. In Broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast Radio shows and Television shows to multiple individual stations without going through In some smaller markets, a station may even be simultaneously listed as an affiliate of two networks.

In the United States, Federal Communications Commission regulations limit the number of network-owned stations as a percentage of total market size. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the

See also