U.S. television

Television is one of the major mass media outlets in the United States. , 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.

As a whole, the television networks that broadcast in the United States are the largest and most distributed in the world, and programs produced specifically for US-based networks are the most widely syndicated internationally. Due to a recent surge in the number and popularity of critically acclaimed television series during the 2000s and the 2010s to date, many critics have said that American television had entered a modern golden age around the beginning of the 21st century; whether that golden age has ended or is ongoing in the early 2020s is disputed.

Television channels and networks

In the United States, television is available via broadcast (also known as "over-the-air" or OTA) – the earliest method of receiving television programming, which merely requires an antenna and an equipped internal or external tuner capable of picking up channels that transmit on the two principal broadcast bands, very high frequency (VHF) and ultra high frequency (UHF), to receive the signal – and four conventional types of multichannel subscription television: cable, unencrypted satellite ("free-to-air"), direct-broadcast satellite television and IPTV (internet protocol television). There are also competing video services on the World Wide Web, which have become an increasingly popular mode of television viewing since the late 2000s, particularly with younger audiences as an alternative or a supplement to the aforementioned traditional forms of viewing television content; the 2010s saw the development of several virtual MVPD services offering "skinny" tiers of channels originally developed for cable and satellite distribution at a reduced base price compared to providers using the more established pay television distribution methods.

Individual broadcast television stations in the U.S. transmit on either VHF channels 2 through 13 or UHF channels 14 through 36. During the era of analog television, broadcast stations transmitted on a single universal channel; however due to the technical complexities of the present digital television standard, most stations now transmit physically on an RF channel that is mapped to a virtual channel, which – with some exceptions – typically differs from their physical allocation and corresponds to the station's former analog channel. The UHF band originally spanned from channels 14 to 83, though the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has reduced the bandwidth allocation for UHF three times since then. Channels 70 to 83 were cut for emergency and other telecommunications purposes in 1983. In 2009, channels 52 to 69 were removed by mandate at the completion of the transition from analog to digital television. In 2020, transition away from channels above 36 was completed to make room for its use by telecommunications companies, after a 2017 spectrum auction.

As in other countries, television stations require a license to broadcast legally (which any prospective broadcaster can apply for through the FCC) and must comply with certain requirements (such as those involving programming of public affairs and educational interest, and regulations prohibiting the airing of indecent content) to retain it; the FCC's Board of Commissioners maintains oversight of the renewal of existing station licenses approaching their expiration, with individuals or groups who wish to oppose the granting of a renewal to a licensee based on any disagreement over rule compliance or any other issues inclined to contest it for consideration of revocation. Free-to-air and subscription television networks, however, are not required to file for a license to operate.

Over-the-air and free-to-air television do not necessitate any monthly payments, while cable, direct broadcast satellite (DBS), IPTV and virtual MVPD services require monthly payments that vary depending on the number of channels that a subscriber chooses to pay for in a particular package. Channels are usually sold in groups (known as "tiers"), rather than singularly (or on an a la carte basis). Most conventional subscription television services offer a limited basic (or "lifeline") tier, a minimum base package that includes only broadcast stations within the television market where the service is located, and public, educational, and government access (PEG) cable channels; in many smaller markets, this tier may offer stations from adjacent markets that act as default network affiliates for areas not served by a local affiliate of one or more of the major broadcast networks; however, since the digital television transition in the late 2000s, these have been replaced in some cases by digital subchannels that have agreed to provide a particular network's programming within the local market.

Elevated programming tiers commonly start with an expanded basic package, offering a selection of subscription channels intended for wide distribution (primarily those that launched between the 1970s and the 1990s); since the upspring of digital cable and satellite television during the mid- and late 1990s, additional channels with more limited distribution are offered as add-ons to the basic packages through separate tiers, which are commonly organized based on the programming format of the channels sold in the tier. A la carte subscription services in the US are primarily limited to pay television (more commonly known as "premium") channels that are offered as add-ons to any programming package that a customer of a multichannel video programming distributor (also known as a cable or satellite "system" or "provider") can subscribe to for an additional monthly fee.

Broadcast television

The United States has a "decentralized", market-oriented television system, particularly in regard to broadcast television. The nation has a national public television service known as the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Local media markets have their own television stations, which may either be affiliated with or owned and operated by a television network. Stations may sign affiliation agreements with one of the national networks for the local rights to carry their programming; these contracts can last anywhere from one to ten years, although such agreements often last on average between four and six years. Except in very small markets with a limited number of commercial stations (generally, fewer than five), affiliation agreements are usually exclusive: for example, if a station is affiliated with NBC, it consequently would not air programs from ABC, CBS or other conventional broadcast networks but may carry specialty services intended to be carried on digital television signals on one or more subchannels.

Arrangements in which television stations carried more than one network on its main signal (which often resulted in some network programs being not being cleared to air locally by the station, thereby limiting their national carriage and resulting in viewers having to rely on an out-of-market station receivable in their area that airs the locally pre-empted show through an affiliation with that same network to see it) were more common between the 1940s and the 1960s, although some arrangements continued as late as 2010. Today, programming from networks other than that with which the station maintains a primary affiliation are usually carried over digital subchannels, which increasingly since the mid-2000s, have allowed one of the major broadcast networks to expand their national coverage to markets where they would have previously either had to settle for a secondary affiliation with a full-power television station (which maintain transmitting power as high as 1000 kilowatts and outputs a signal extending as far as from the transmitter site), or an exclusive or primary affiliation with a low-power station with more limited signal coverage (which maintain a reduced transmitting power not exceeding 100 kilowatts, with a more limited signal radius covering an area from the transmitter).

However unlike in other countries, to ensure local presences in television broadcasting, federal law restricts the amount of network programming that local stations can run. Until the 1970s and 1980s, local stations supplemented network programming with a sizeable amount of their own locally produced shows, which encompassed a broad content spectrum that included variety, talk, music and sports programming. Today however, many (though not all) stations produce only local news programs, and in some cases, public affairs programs (most commonly, in the form of news and/or political analysis shows); the remainder of their schedules are filled with syndicated programs, or material produced independently and sold to individual stations in each local market.

The method of most commercial stations – those that rely, at least partly, on advertising for revenue – acquiring programs through distributors of syndicated content to fill time not allotted to network and/or local programming differs from other countries worldwide where networks handle the responsibility of programming first-run and syndicated programs, whereas their partner stations are only responsible for the programming of local content. The international programming model is used in the US by some smaller networks and multicast services, which are more cost-effective for their affiliate stations since they require little to no acquired or locally produced programming to fill airtime at the local level.

The federal government has imposed limits on how many stations an individual owner can hold. The earliest limits restricted owners from holding more than five stations across the entire country, and no more than one in any given market. As of 2017, these limits have been relaxed substantially. Since 1999, an ownership group is now legally allowed to own up to two signals in a market (which can amount to many more actual channels through digital transmission); since the early 1990s, some broadcasters have also used a shell company to circumvent certain ownership restrictions by way of a local marketing agreement; groups can cover up to 78% of the United States with their signals under the "UHF discount" (originally passed in 1985 to benefit UHF television stations that, prior to the 2009 digital transition, often had spotty signal quality), which allows broadcasters to count ownership of UHF stations by 50% of the station's audience reach. (The "discount" was repealed by the FCC under Chair Tom Wheeler and his Democrat-led board in 2015, but was reinstated by Wheeler's successor and former board colleague, Ajit Pai and his fellow Republican commissioners in April 2017.)

All four of the major television networks directly own and operate a number of stations, concentrating mostly on the largest metropolitan areas. The largest ownership group in terms of coverage of the U.S. is the E. W. Scripps Company, whose stations cover 65% of the nation; Scripps primarily operates affiliates of the six major networks, most maintaining full-scale local operations and/or news departments, though its reach greatly expanded in 2021 through its purchase of Ion Media (corporate parent of namesake flagship network Ion Television), whose stations by contrast are entirely centrally operated and do not maintain local programming, which it acquired to have that group's stations serve primarily as pass-through outlets for Scripps’ various multicast network properties. Two other ownership groups in particular, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group, do not produce network programming (Sinclair has produced original programs for its stations but not on a full-time network including the four multicast services it distributes to its own stations and those owned by partner companies and other unaffiliated group owners) but each own over 150 stations, each covering over three-eighths of the country. In terms of number of stations, Nexstar and Sinclair run first and second, with third place held by Gray Television, whose 131 stations cover mostly smaller metropolitan areas reaching only 10% of the population.

Major broadcast networks

The four major U.S. broadcast television networks are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), CBS (an abbreviation for the Columbia Broadcasting System, its former legal name), the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), and the Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox). The first and elder three (which are colloquially known as the " Big Three") began as radio networks: NBC and CBS respectively began operations in 1924 and 1927, while ABC was spun off from NBC to Edward J. Noble in 1943 as the Blue Network during FCC inquiries over NBC's dominant share of the American radio market, although the ABC television network would not reach viewership and distribution parity with NBC and CBS until the late 1960s. DuMont Television Network (1948–1956) and NTA Film Network (1956–1961) were early attempts at a " fourth network". Fox, built partly on the remnants of DuMont, is a relative newcomer that began operations in 1986 and expanded its programming through the 1990s. The Paramount Television Network flourished simultaneously with Fox, if less successfully.

All in all, the U.S. broadcasting landscape dramatically evolved towards a conglomeratization of players – an effect also called concentration of media ownership, which describes the narrowing of competition in modern television broadcasting.

Weekday schedules on ABC, CBS, and NBC affiliates tend to be similar, with programming choices sorted by dayparts (Fox does not air network programming outside of prime time other than sports programming that airs on weekends and, on fairly rare occasions, weekdays). Typically, these begin with an early-morning national newscast (such as ABC's ''America This Morning''), followed by a local morning news program; these are typically followed by a network morning program (such as NBC's ''Today''), which usually mixes news, weather, lifestyle segments, interviews and music performances.

Network daytime schedules consist of talk shows and soap operas, although one network – CBS – still carries game shows (a handful of other game shows otherwise air in syndication); local newscasts may air at midday timeslots. Syndicated talk shows are shown in the late afternoon, followed by additional local newscasts in the early evening time period. ABC, CBS and NBC offer network news programs each evening, generally airing at 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. in the Eastern Time Zone (5:30 or 6:00 p.m. in other areas), however these are sometimes subject to pre-emption on weekends and select holidays due to sports programming that overlaps into the time slot, either because the event is scheduled to occur later in the day or extends beyond the set time block (due to regulations imposed by sports leagues, particularly as a result of the infamous 1968 " Heidi Bowl" telecast in which NBC interrupted a National Football League (NFL) game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders to air a made-for-television film in its scheduled time slot due to a failure in communications between network executives, most televised sporting events are required to be broadcast until their completion).

Local newscasts or syndicated programs fill the "prime access" hour or half-hour (7:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones, 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. in other areas), and lead into the networks' prime time schedules, which are the day's most-watched three hours of television. The traditional prime time schedule runs from 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. in the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones and 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. elsewhere, although this varies depending on the network and the day: the four major networks program an additional hour (running from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. elsewhere) on Sunday evenings (many Spanish language broadcast networks also program this additional hour to begin their prime time lineups on all seven nights of the week); Fox, The CW and MyNetworkTV, in contrast, do not carry any programming during the 10:00/9:00 p.m. hour and leave that hour for their affiliates to provide programming of their own.

Typically, family-oriented comedy programs led in the early part of prime time, although in recent years, reality television programs (such as '' Dancing with the Stars'' and ''American Idol''), and more adult-oriented scripted programs – both comedies and dramas – have largely replaced them. Later in the evening, drama series of various types (such as '' NCIS'', '' Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'' and ''Grey's Anatomy'') air. Sunday is the most-watched night on American television, with many of TV's most popular shows airing on that night. Viewership tends to then decline throughout the week, culminating in the lowest ratings being registered on Friday and Saturday night; most broadcast networks abandoned the programming of first-run scripted fare on Saturdays by 2004, in favor of sports, newsmagazines and burn-offs and reruns of other prime time series; however first-run scripted programming continues to air on Fridays, being mixed in with newsmagazines and/or reality series, depending on the network. Networks, however, pay special attention to Thursday night, which is the last night for advertisers of weekend purchases – such as cars, movie tickets and home video rentals – to reach large television audiences. Throughout the 1990s, NBC called its own Thursday night lineup "Must See TV", and during that decade, some of the country's most watched television shows aired on Thursday nights (several of which aired on NBC), before the re-emergence of Sunday as the top night of prime time programming in the 2000s.

At the end of prime time, another local news program is broadcast, usually followed by late-night interview shows (such as ''The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'' or ''The Tonight Show''). Rather than sign off in the early pre-dawn hours of the morning (as was standard practice until the early 1970s in larger markets and until the mid-1980s in smaller ones), television stations now fill the time with syndicated programming, reruns of prime time television shows or late local newscasts (the latter becoming less common since the early 2000s), or 30-minute advertisements, known as infomercials, and in the case of CBS and ABC, overnight network news programs. On some stations, syndicated programming may fill timeslots where local newscasts would traditionally air, either due to the station not programming news in certain time periods or because it does not operate a news department; similarly, local news programs in the late evening hours may air during the final hour of prime time (10:00 p.m. in the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones and 9:00 p.m. in all others) and/or during the morning commute period (7:00 to 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. in all time zones), usually on stations affiliated with networks other than those classified as part of the "Big Three" (ABC, NBC and CBS) and those without a network affiliation.

Saturday mornings usually feature network programming aimed at children (traditionally these mainly consisted of animated cartoons and in some cases, live-action scripted series and even game shows targeted at the demographic, although live-action lifestyle, science and wildlife programs have become the norm for the timeslot since 2009, while animated series have primarily been relegated to non-commercial and non-English language networks), while Sunday mornings include a form of public affairs program known as the Sunday morning talk shows (which maintain a "week-in-review" format that focuses primarily on political and socioeconomic issues, and if a particular program's format is more fluid in regards to topical content, other news stories of major interest). Both of these help fulfill stations' legal obligations, respectively to provide educational children's programs (through a law passed in 1990 known as the Children's Television Act, which requires stations to carry a minimum of three hours of programs featuring content benefiting the educational needs of youth each week) and public service programming. Sports and infomercials (and on some stations, syndicated feature film packages) can be found on weekend afternoons, followed again by the same type of prime-time shows aired during the week.

Other over-the-air commercial television

From 1956 to 1986, the majority of English-language television stations that were not affiliated with the Big Three networks, nor affiliates of National Educational Television nor, arguably, (from 1956 to 1961) the smaller NTA Film Network were "independent," airing only syndicated and some locally produced programming to fill their daily schedules. Many independent stations still exist in the U.S., usually historically broadcasting on the UHF band; however the number of them had drastically decreased (especially within individual markets) after 1995 due to the formation of newer broadcast networks that were created to compete against the four established competitors. Syndicated shows, often reruns of television series currently in or out of production and movies released as recently as three years prior to their initial syndication broadcast, take up much of their schedules.

However, in October 1986, the Fox Broadcasting Company was launched as a challenge to the Big Three networks, with six independent stations that News Corporation (which acquired the 20th Century Fox the year before) had acquired from Metromedia as its cornerstone charter outlets, along with many independents owned by other companies. Thanks largely to the success of shows like ''The Simpsons'', ''Beverly Hills, 90210'' and ''The X-Files'', as well as the network's acquisition of rights to show games from the National Football League's National Football Conference arm in December 1993, Fox has established itself as a major player in broadcast television. However, Fox differs from the three older networks in that it does not air daily morning and nightly news programs or have network-run daytime or weeknight late night schedules (though late night shows do air on Saturday nights, and beforehand, the network made previous failed attempts at late night programming on Monday through Friday evenings between 1986 and 1993). Its nightly prime-time schedule runs only two hours long on Monday through Saturdays and three hours on Sundays (something the network intentionally did to sidestep FCC regulations for television networks in effect at Fox's launch), and some of its major market affiliates used to broadcast on UHF before the digital transition (several affiliates though broadcast on VHF pre-transition, primarily as a result of affiliation deals with former longtime Big Three affiliates owned by now-defunct station groups New World Communications and SF Broadcasting that it signed after acquiring the NFL rights).

Many of its affiliates in mid-size and small markets outsource news production to Big Three affiliates rather produce their own newscasts, and its flagship stations in New York City and Los Angeles do not include the network's name within their callsigns (Fox's owned-and-operated stations in New York City and Los Angeles instead use the respective callsigns WNYW and KTTV; the WFOX-TV and KFOX-TV calls are respectively used by Fox affiliates in Jacksonville, Florida and El Paso, Texas). Fox's only scheduled news program is ''Fox News Sunday'', which it airs on Sunday mornings; special news coverage on the network comes from the staff of its sister cable network Fox News (which launched in October 1996, around the same time as its affiliate video service Fox NewsEdge), though not every affiliate carries breaking news bulletins from Fox News outside of prime time presidential addresses, and national and international events of utmost urgency. Most of Fox's affiliates now have local newscasts (only a small number of affiliates, mainly based in larger markets, carried news programming prior to the mid-1990s), often scheduled during the final hour of prime time – an hour earlier than newscasts seen on major network stations – at which time they compete with network dramas, rather than other local newscasts (although some news-producing Fox stations also carry newscasts in the traditional late news time period), and for one to three additional hours in the morning that overlap with morning news programs on ABC, NBC and CBS.

Three new networks launched in the 1990s: within six days of each other in January 1995, The WB (which was originally formed as a venture between Time Warner, Tribune Broadcasting – which made the majority of its independent stations principal charter affiliates of the network – and former Fox executive Jamie Kellner, who served as The WB's original chief executive officer) and UPN (created as a programming partnership between Chris-Craft Industries/United Television and Paramount Television, which had been acquired the year prior by Viacom, which would gain full ownership of UPN five years after the network's launch) were launched primarily to compete against Fox, targeting the same younger demographic (teenagers and young adults 12 to 34) that network had built its success upon during the first half of the decade. In August 1998, Paxson Communications (now Ion Media) launched Pax TV to counterprogram the four larger networks as well as The WB and UPN, with a focus on family-oriented original and acquired programming; due to underperforming viewership in its initial format, Pax relaunched as i: Independent Television (focusing more on reruns and movies aimed at a broader audience) in July 2005 and then as Ion Television in September 2007.

On September 18, 2006, Time Warner and CBS Corporation shut down The WB and UPN to launch a "merger" of those networks, The CW; meanwhile, two weeks earlier on September 5, News Corporation created MyNetworkTV, originally intended to replace UPN and The WB programming on Fox-owned stations that were affiliated with the latter networks.

The CW was created in September 2006 when CBS Corporation and Time Warner decided to merge the respective programming assets of the United Paramount Network (UPN) and The WB, both of which launched in January 1995, with The CW also drawing from the latter's broadcast and cable assets and scheduling model (The WB's online assets remained separate, although its former web domain – which was revamped as a streaming service – was shut down in December 2013 and replaced with a promotional website for Warner Bros. Television programs).

The CW broadcasts ten hours a week of programming in prime time, all airing only on Monday through Fridays (the network maintained a three-hour evening lineup on Sundays from 2006 to 2009, when that time was turned over to its affiliates; it plans to reinstate Sunday prime time programming in October 2018), and five hours on Saturday mornings (its children's program block may bleed into the afternoon hours on weekends on a few stations due to other locally scheduled programs). The CW is the only major network that operates a national programming service feed for smaller markets, The CW Plus (a successor to The WB's group of cable-only affiliates, The WB 100+ Station Group, which launched in September 1998 to provide the network's programming to markets where it would otherwise not be able to gain adequate over-the-air coverage), which, as a cost-effective method that reduces programming responsibilities on prospective affiliate stations, fills airtime not occupied by CW network programming with syndicated programs and infomercials; The CW Plus is distributed via digital subchannel and cable-only affiliates, making it also one of the only networks that has local affiliates that do not broadcast over-the-air.

MyNetworkTV originally started as a conventional network with a format primarily consisting of English language telenovelas; however, after experiencing continued low ratings for its prime time-exclusive schedule (even after several programming revamps that followed over the next three years after the initial format faltered), it converted into a "broadcast programming service" in September 2009, adopting a format made up of reruns of series originally aired on other networks for ten hours a week on Monday through Fridays.

Ion broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week (though only eighteen hours of its schedule each day consist of entertainment programming, with infomercials and religious programming making up the remainder of the schedule), making the Ion network the largest English-language commercial television network to be totally responsible for its affiliates' programming. Ion differs from other commercial networks in that the majority of its stations are owned-and-operated by its parent company with very few affiliates, and it is distributed exclusively via cable and satellite in markets where the network does not have a local station; Ion was the last of the seven conventional English language commercial broadcast networks to expand into distribution via digital multicasting, having relied entirely on cable and satellite distribution in markets where it otherwise could not maintain a primary affiliation until 2014, when it began accepting subchannel-only affiliates through deals with Gray Television and Nexstar Media Group.

Digital multicast services

With the digital television transition, which was completed in two phases in February and June 2009, the use of digital multicasting has given breed to various networks created for distribution on these multiplexed feeds of new and existing stations. However, for the most part, very few of these networks have been able to gain a national reach on parity with many of the conventional commercial and non-commercial networks, in part due to the fact that many stations transmit high definition programming on their main feed in 1080i, which requires a bitrate less compartmentalized for allowing more than one multicast feed (which are generally transmitted in standard definition) without risking diminished picture quality; some alternately transmit their main feed in 720p, which favors multiplexing of more than two subchannels at a time (ATSC 3.0, which began development around the time of the 2009 transition with FCC consideration to replace the current ATSC 1.0 as the technological standard for digital television expected to occur in 2016, uses improved compression technology able to fit additional subchannels on a single programming stream as well as allowing for the transmission of high definition content in the 4K resolution format).

Retro Television Network was among the first networks to be produced specifically for the digital television market; Equity Broadcasting created the network in 2005, originally relying mostly on public domain series before expanding to a broader library of licensed reruns. RTN's initial success was dented by its owner's financial collapse and further difficulties pertaining to its successor, current owner Get After It Media (Luken Communications). The most popular and widely distributed network that uses digital subchannels as its primary form of distribution is MeTV, a classic television network originally launched by station owner Weigel Broadcasting in 2005 as a programming format on one of its flagship television stations in Chicago, WFBT-CA (now WWME-CD), and evolved into a national network in November 2010; MeTV now has affiliations with primary channels in a number of markets ( WJLP in the New York City market, WDPN-TV in Philadelphia and Delaware, and WGTA in Atlanta). Both MeTV and its most prominent rival, Nexstar-owned Antenna TV (originally founded in 2010 by Tribune Broadcasting), popularized the format for multicasting that relies on archived programming. This TV (owned by Allen Media Group, and co-founded by Weigel and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) used a similar format, focusing on older as well as some relatively recent feature films; it helped to spawn similar movie-oriented broadcast networks such as Movies! (a joint venture between Weigel and Fox Television Stations, which relies primarily on films from the library of the latter's former sister film studio, 20th Century Studios) and GetTV (which mainly airs films from the library of owner Sony Pictures Entertainment).

Demographically focused networks were created during the 2010s; Bounce TV was launched in September 2011 by Martin Luther King III and Andrew Young, featuring a broader general entertainment format aimed at African American adults. Katz Broadcasting, owned by Bounce executive Jonathan Katz and purchased by the E. W. Scripps Company in 2017, launched two gender-focused networks with specific formats in August 2014 – Grit (aimed at men with a lineup heavy on western and action films) and Escape (now Court TV Mystery, aimed at women and featuring mystery and true crime programs) – and a genre-based network in April 2015, Laff (featuring a mix of comedic feature films and sitcoms). Luken Communications is the largest operator of subchannel networks by total number (which are largely carried on low-power outlets), which in addition to the Retro Television Network include among others country and rural themed Heartland, automotive-centered Rev'n, children's network PBJ and a modern version of The Family Channel. Men's network Tuff TV was formerly managed as a Luken network but is now independent.

Other subchannel-based networks include those that also rely on archived programming such as Buzzr (a network focusing of game shows sourced from the programming library of owner Fremantle) and Comet (launched by the Sinclair Broadcast Group and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in October 2015, focusing on science fiction series and films sourced from the MGM library), and networks which do not completely if at all rely on archived scripted programming like Court TV (a network developed by Katz/Scripps as a revival of the cable network now known as TruTV, which mainly airs court trial coverage and true crime programming), WeatherNation TV (an independently owned 24-hour weather network which features subchannels as part of its multiplatform distribution model), TheCoolTV and The Country Network (which rely on music videos).

In smaller cities and rural areas, the major broadcast networks may also rely on digital subchannels to be seen in these areas, as the market may not be populous enough to support a financially independent station for each network. As such FCC regulations govern cable providers must provide basic service at a reasonable cost. (Since advent of digital television equipment, the cost is responsibility of the consumer.)

Broadcast television in languages other than English

=Spanish

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Several Spanish language broadcast (as well as cable) networks exist, which are the most common form of non-English television broadcasts. These networks are not as widely distributed over-the-air as their English counterparts, available mostly in markets with sizeable Latino and Hispanic populations; several of these over-the-air networks are alternatively fed directly to cable, satellite and IPTV providers in markets without either the availability or the demand for a locally based owned-and-operated or affiliate station.

The largest of these networks, Univision, launched in 1986 as a successor to the Spanish International Network (which debuted in September 1962, with Spanish language independent stations KMEX-TV in Los Angeles and KCOR-TV (now KWEX-DT) in San Antonio, Texas as its charter stations). It has risen to become the fifth highest-rated television network in the U.S. (behind NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox) and is the dominant Spanish language network in the U.S., with its ratings having risen to levels where it has beaten at least one of its English language competitors since the late 1990s. Although Univision originally featured programming content from a variety of distributors, the network now relies mainly on programs sourced from Mexico's dominant broadcaster, Televisa (which has maintained partial ownership of Univision's corporate parent on and off throughout its history) as well as domestically produced programming.

Its major competition is Telemundo, a sister network of NBC (which acquired Telemundo in 2001) that was also established in 1986 through a consortium of three Spanish-language stations, WNJU/New York City, WBBS-TV/Chicago and KVEA/Los Angeles. It was considered an also-ran to Univision until the late 2000s, when parent company NBCUniversal began heavily investing in its news and entertainment programming. Unlike Univision, the majority of Telemundo's programming is produced specifically for the network. In addition to carrying the traditional programming format for Spanish language broadcasters (which typically incorporates telenovelas, variety series, news, sports and films imported from Latin American countries), also includes dubbed versions of American feature film releases.

Other popular Spanish-language broadcast networks are Univision-owned UniMás, which was launched in January 2002 and is aimed at a younger Hispanic demographic; Azteca, the American version of Mexico's Azteca networks, which debuted in July 2001; TeleXitos aimed at Hispanic and Latino Americans, the network airs a mix of dramatic television series from the 1970s to the 2000s and movies, with all programming consisting of shows dubbed into Spanish; and independent networks Estrella TV (which began as a programming format on Liberman Broadcasting's Spanish language independent stations in the early 2000s and eventually launched nationally in September 2009, featuring a traditional lineup of Latino-focused programming largely produced by Liberman) and LATV (which originated in 2002 as a programming format on KJLA in Los Angeles before becoming a national network in September 2007, and focuses mostly on unscripted music, talk and variety programs). V-me (Spanish pronunciation: �beme a pun on veme, "watch me") is a Spanish broadcast television network formerly carried in association with public television stations created for the United States Hispanic market, which is currently pursuing a pay-TV model. V-me delivers drama, music, current affairs, food, lifestyle, nature and educational pre-school content to its viewers.

Currently, The Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network, Inc. (HITN) is the largest Spanish-language broadcasting network in the United States. It delivers educational programming to over 42 million homes nationwide, and reaches over 40% of U.S. households. Its distribution network includes Comcast, DirecTV, Verizon FiOS, Dish Network, Altice USA, U-verse TV, Charter Communications, and a host of smaller distributors. Its stated mission is "to advance the educational, social, cultural, and economic circumstances of Hispanics."

=Other languages

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French language programming is generally limited in scope, with some locally produced French and creole programming available in the Miami area (serving refugees from Haiti) and Louisiana, along with some locales along the heavily populated Eastern Seaboard. Francophone areas near the eastern portion of the Canada–United States border generally receive television broadcasts presented in the language from French Canadian networks (such as Ici Radio-Canada Télé and TVA), which are widely available over-the-air but rarely on cable in those areas.

Many large cities also have television stations that broadcast programming in various Asian languages (such as KTSF in San Francisco), especially after the digital television transition, which has allowed some smaller stations in areas with heavy populations of Asian immigrants and American natives of Asian origin fluent in one of that continent's indigenous languages to carry such programming either as primary channel or subchannel affiliations. A few unusual examples of other foreign broadcasters also exist, such as Greek language WZRA-CD in Florida and Polish language WPVN-DT4 in Chicago.

There have also been a few local stations that have broadcast programming in American Sign Language, accompanied by English closed captioning. Prior to the development of closed captioning, it was not uncommon for some public television programs to incorporate ASL translations by an on-screen interpreter. An interpreter may still be used for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community for on-air emergency broadcasts (such as severe weather alerts given by local governments) as well as televised press conferences by local and state government officials accompanied by closed captioning.

Non-commercial television

Public television has a far smaller role in the United States than in most other countries. The federal government, through the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), does operate NASA TV (a service focusing on the U.S. space program with some educational programming) for public consumption, but only distributes that service via satellite and the Internet and not through terrestrial outlets; the United States Department of Defense produced the Pentagon Channel (later renamed DoD News Channel), a military news outlet that operated from 2004 to 2015. In addition, Broadcasting Board of Governors content (the most well-known being Voice of America) has been available to U.S. consumers since the partial repeal of the Smith–Mundt Act in 2013; VOA and its sister outlets are likewise restricted to shortwave and Internet broadcasts. Content from the National Weather Service (such as loops of NEXRAD imagery and NOAA Weather Radio feeds) is frequently repurposed for television.

The Public Broadcasting Service is the largest public television broadcaster in the United States, originating in October 1970 as the successor of National Educational Television (which was established in 1954). Unlike the commercial networks, PBS does not officially produce any of its own programming; instead, individual PBS stations (most notably, WNET in Newark, New Jersey in Boston and WETA-TV in Washington, D.C.), station groups and affiliated producers create programming and provide these through PBS to other affiliates. While it does provide a base slate of programming to its member stations (which is limited to roughly thirteen hours a week of programming in prime time, airing on Sunday through Fridays with fewer programs on Thursday and Friday evenings, as well as daytime children's programming during the morning and afternoon), PBS does not schedule all programs it supplies in set time slots, giving its members leeway in scheduling these programs in time slots of their choosing. Like the six larger commercial English language broadcast networks, its member stations handle the responsibility of programming time periods where programming supplied by the service is not broadcast, which are filled by cultural and public affairs programming of relevance to their market or region of service, and syndicated programs of various genres.

Most (but, by no means, all) public television stations are members of PBS, sharing programs such as ''Sesame Street'', '' NOVA'' and ''Masterpiece Theatre''. Although many PBS stations operate individually, a number of states – such as Wisconsin, Maryland, Minnesota, Oklahoma and South Carolina – have state-owned public broadcasting authorities that operate and fund all public television stations in their respective states. The Alabama Educational Television Commission, licensee for the nine stations comprising Alabama Public Television, was established by the Alabama Legislature in 1953. In January 1955, WCIQ on Mount Cheaha began operation as the nation's ninth non-commercial television station. Four months later in April 1955 with the sign-on of WBIQ in Birmingham, Alabama became the first state in the country with an educational television network. Alabama Public Television was a model for other states in the nation and for television broadcasters in other countries. 25 other states copied Alabama's system of operation to provide service through multiple, linked television stations, using full-power satellite stations and (in some cases) low-power translators to relay the originating station's programming to other areas. Similar state networks have also been created by commercial broadcasters to relay network programming throughout portions or even the entirety of a state.

The federal government does subsidize non-commercial educational television stations through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The income received from the government is insufficient to cover expenses and stations rely on corporate sponsorships and viewer contributions (including from private benefactors) to finance their operations and programming production. Various public television outlets – albeit not on all individual PBS member and independent public broadcasting stations and PBS member networks simultaneously – hold pledge drives two to four times per year, which account for a decent portion of the non-government-subsidized income through public and private contributions.

American public television stations air programming that commercial stations do not offer, such as educational (including cultural and arts) and public affairs programming. There are also a number of syndicators dealing exclusively or primarily with public broadcast stations, both PBS and independent public television stations (most prominently, American Public Television). Additionally, there are a number of smaller networks feeding programming to public stations – including World, First Nations Experience (focusing on Native American and indigenous programing), and Create (focusing on lifestyle, travel, cooking and how-to programs) – primarily through digital multicasting; the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle has also provided blocks of programming to a variety of affiliates in the U.S., and increasingly feeds from other national broadcasters (including Deutsche Welle's DW-TV) have been distributed through digital subchannels belonging to public stations in the U.S. New York City's municipally-owned broadcast service, NYC Media, creates original programming that airs in several markets. Few cities have major municipally-owned stations.

Many religious broadcast networks and stations exist, also surviving on viewer contributions and time leased to the programming producers; the two most prominent are the Trinity Broadcasting Network, which was founded in 1973 by Paul and Jan Crouch as a part-time ministry that leased programming time on KBSA (now UniMás owned-and-operated station KFTR-DT) in the Los Angeles exurb of Ontario, California, before moving to KLXA-TV (now KTBN-TV) in Fontana, which it began purchasing time on in the following year after KBSA was sold; it gradually became the most widely distributed Christian television network in the world with 20 networks (including five in the United States that are primarily available through multicasting, The Church Channel, the youth-oriented JUCE TV and Smile of a Child TV, and the Latino-oriented TBN Enlace USA and TBN Salsa) and several affiliates internationally; and the Daystar Television Network, founded in 1993 by Marcus and Joni Lamb, when the former's Word of God Fellowship ministry purchased the license of defunct UHF station KMPX (now an Estrella TV owned-and-operated station) in Dallas, Texas. Most of their stations are owned by the television ministries directly or through subsidiary companies (Community Educational Television and Word of God Fellowship, respectively) used by them to operate stations that TBN and Daystar cannot own outright due to FCC regulations prohibiting individual broadcasting companies from owning television stations reaching more than 39% of all U.S. television markets.

Other Christian broadcasters include the Three Angels Broadcasting Network (associated with the Seventh-day Adventists), Cornerstone Television, World Harvest Television (WHT), Hope Channel, Amazing Facts Television, The Word Network, The Worship Network and Total Christian Television. These networks rely mainly on overt televangelism from church services or other religious teaching series for programming, although they also incorporate faith-based children's programming and also air religious-themed feature-length films. Other religions outside of evangelical Christianity also have television outlets, including the predominantly Roman Catholic-oriented Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), Jewish Life Television (JLTV), and the LDS-affiliated Brigham Young University Television (byuTV). Several predominantly religious broadcasters carry some secular, usually family-friendly, programming in addition to the overt televangelism; byuTV runs family comedies, WHT runs classic Westerns, the Christian Television Network and Total Living Network operate "lifestyle" channels with secular home, garden and human interest programming, and JLTV runs classic comedy reruns from Jewish entertainers.

Spanish-language religious networks ESNE (Roman Catholic), Almavision (Christian), Vision Latina (Iglesia Universal) and Enlace (Christian) provide religious programming to the Spanish-speaking viewers across the United States with sermons, discussions and music.

Public access television is a noncommercial form of television required by law to be offered to cable television consumers, in which members of the public are free to place their programming on the cable service. It is a subset of public, educational and government access. Most popular in the 1980s and early 1990s, the rise of the Internet and subscription satellite television (the latter of which is not required to carry public-access television services) has forced it to evolve.

Cable and satellite television

While pay television systems existed as early as the late 1940s, until the early 1970s, cable television only served to distribute distant over-the-air television stations to rural areas not served by stations that are based locally. This role was reflected in the original meaning of the CATV acronym, "community antenna TV". In that decade, national networks that exclusively transmitted via cable and maintained their own individual programming formats began to launch, while cable system franchises began operating in major cities with over-the-air television stations. By the mid-1970s, some form of cable television was available in almost every market that already had over-the-air television service. Today, most American households receive cable television, and cable networks collectively have greater viewership than broadcast networks, even though individual programs on most of the major commercial broadcast networks often have relatively higher viewership than those seen on cable channels.

The oldest-existing cable-originated television channel as well as the first successful premium cable (or "pay-cable") service is Home Box Office ( HBO), which was also the first television network intended for cable distribution on a regional or national basis. HBO launched on November 8, 1972, to 365 Service Electric Cable subscribers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, with a mix of movies, sports, and comedy and music specials. For its first three years of operation, it used microwave technology to transmit its programming to CATV and MMDS providers in Pennsylvania and New York. On September 30, 1975, beginning with its telecast of the " Thrilla in Manila" boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, HBO became the first television network to use communications satellites to transmit its programming, immediately expanding its distribution to UA Columbia Cablevision's Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, Florida, systems and the American Television and Communications Corporation system in Jackson, Mississippi.

The first basic cable network was Atlanta, Georgia independent station WTCG (channel 17), which was uplinked to satellite on December 17, 1976, months after station owner Ted Turner reached an agreement with media executive Howard H. Hubbard to set up a cable network via satellite transmission. Turner's decision to distribute his station – which subsequently had its call sign changed to WTBS (for "Turner Broadcasting System") – via satellite enabled WTCG to be received nationwide, especially in markets that did not have a local independent station or did not receive an out-of-market independent. In 1981, Turner Broadcasting split the Atlanta broadcast feed of WTBS from the satellite-delivered cable feed and began marketing the channel to cable providers as a "free market superstation". (The broadcast and cable feeds, however, simulcast one another with certain exceptions until October 2007, when Turner Broadcasting – which was acquired by Time Warner in 1996 – decided to separate the programming on both feeds, therefore making TBS a cable-exclusive entertainment network with a principal focus on comedy, and reformatting the Atlanta signal under the WPCH-TV call letters).

Turner's move pioneered the superstation concept, which precipitated other independent stations – most notably, WGN-TV in Chicago and WOR-TV (now MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station WWOR-TV) in New York City – to uplink their signals to satellite for redistribution by cable systems outside the station's primary coverage area. (The practice has since been restricted by the FCC, although six stations that achieved superstation coverage prior to the ban ncluding WPCHmaintain grandfather clauses to continue offering their programming throughout the United States and Canada.) Other national superstations followed WTBS's lead in implementing a separate national feed that incorporated substitute programming for shows seen in the originating market that local stations declared themselves to be the exclusive carriers in their market after syndication exclusivity regulations went into effect in January 1990. Since WGN America (the former national feed of WGN-TV, which began converting into a news channel as NewsNation in March 2021) converted into a conventional cable channel in 2014, no national superstations exist in the United States and the six remaining regional superstations are limited to distribution via Dish Network and C-band satellite as well as through limited distribution on cable providers in their associated regions of the U.S.

The second basic cable network, the first to operate as a cable-originated outlet and the first such network to be uplinked via satellite from launch was the CBN Satellite Network, launched in April 1977 by televangelist Pat Robertson as the television ministry of his Christian Broadcasting Network. By the time it reformatted as the CBN Cable Network in 1981, it refocused towards secular family-oriented programming, carrying a mix of reruns of classic television series and feature films alongside its religious programming. The network changed its name to The CBN Family Channel in 1988 (revised to The Family Channel in 1990, after CBN spun it off into the indirectly related International Family Entertainment), focusing more on family entertainment programs and reducing reliance on religious programs; this shift towards an entertainment format was more pronounced in its subsequent formats as Fox Family (following its 1998 purchase by News Corporation), ABC Family (after its 2001 sale to ABC parent The Walt Disney Company) and Freeform (to which it was renamed in January 2016 to signify its shift toward a broad schedule of family-oriented shows as well as series of appeal to teen and young adult audiences).

Unlike broadcast networks, most cable networks air the same programming nationwide. Top cable networks include USA Network (which maintains a general entertainment format), ESPN and FS1 (which focus on sports programming), MTV (which originally focused on music videos when it launched in April 1981, but now largely features music-related, original scripted and reality television programming), CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel (which are dedicated news channels with some opinion and other feature-driven programming), A&E (a network created through the 1984 merger of arts-and-culture-oriented channels ARTS and The Entertainment Channel, which now focuses on non-fiction programs and reality docuseries), Syfy (which focuses on science fiction and fantasy programming), Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network (which focus on children's programming, although the latter two run nighttime blocks aimed at a teen and adult audience, Nick at Nite and Adult Swim), Discovery Channel and Animal Planet (which focus on reality and documentary programs), AMC (which originally began as a classic film-focused movie channel in October 1984, and now focuses on a mix of feature films and original series), Turner Classic Movies (which focuses on older theatrical feature films), E! (which originally focused on the entertainment industry, but now largely focuses on pop culture shows, films and reality series), Bravo (which began in 1982 as a premium channel focusing on international films and arts programming, but now focuses mostly on reality series and mainstream films), TNT and FX (also general entertainment networks, with some focus on drama) and Lifetime (which targets at a female audience, with a mix of television films, and original and acquired comedy, reality and drama series).

Premium channels – cable networks that subscribers have to pay an additional fee to their provider to receive – began launching in the 1970s and initially grew in popularity as it allowed subscribers to watch movies without time or content editing common with over-the-air television broadcasts of theatrically released feature films and without interruptions by advertising. While HBO continues to feature theatrical films and specials, the service eventually became one of the first cable channels to successfully venture into original programming; by the late 1990s, HBO began to be known for groundbreaking first-run series (such as ''The Larry Sanders Show'', ''The Sopranos'' and ''Sex and the City'') that were edgier and more risque in content than those allowed to air on broadcast networks. Other pay-extra networks launched in the years subsequent to HBO's launch including Showtime, which launched on September 16, 1976, with a similar format; and movie-oriented services such as Star Channel (which launched in April 1973, and later became The Movie Channel in November 1979) and HBO-owned Cinemax (which launched on August 1, 1980, and later became more known for its late-night softcore pornographic films). Although attempts at such services date back to the 1950s, pay-per-view services (such as Viewer's Choice and Request TV) began launching in the mid-1980s, allowing subscribers to purchase movies and events on a one-time-only basis via telephone; with the advent of digital cable, interactive technologies allowed pay-per-view selections to be purchased by remote.

In addition to sports networks that are distributed to a national audience, two other types of sports-oriented television networks exist. Regional sports networks are cable outlets designed to cover a limited geographic region and metropolitan area, which carry events from local professional and collegiate sports teams, as well as team-related programs, news and magazine programs. The most prominent of these are Bally Sports, NBC Sports Regional Networks, AT&T SportsNet and Spectrum Sports, which comprise multiple networks serving different regions of the United States. Independently owned regional sports networks also exist in some regions served by one of the major groups. Out-of-market sports packages, meanwhile, are composed of individual multichannel packages broadcasting events from an individual sport that are carried by regional sports networks, and national and local broadcasters that hold rights to individual teams or sports leagues; the out-of-market sports package is the most expensive form of a la carte television service, ranging in price from $50 to $75 per month.

Transmission and technology

The national cable television network became possible in the mid-1970s with the launch of domestic communications satellites that could economically broadcast television programs to cable operators anywhere in the continental United States (some domestic satellites also covered Alaska and Hawaii with dedicated spot beams that reached the contiguous states). Until then, cable networks like HBO had been limited to regional coverage through distribution over expensive terrestrial microwave links leased from the telephone companies (primarily AT&T). Satellites were generally used only for international (i.e., transoceanic) communications; their antennas covered an entire hemisphere, producing weak signals that required large, expensive receiving antennas. The first domestic communications satellite, Westar 1, was launched in 1974. By concentrating its signal on the continental United States with a directional antenna, Westar 1 could transmit to TVRO ("television receive-only") dishes only a few meters in diameter, well within the means of local cable television operators. HBO became the first cable network to transmit programming via satellite in September 1975.

Cable ''system operators'' now receive programming by satellite, terrestrial optical fiber (a method used primarily to relay local stations based within metropolitan areas to the franchise, and acts as a backup for the system operator if a broadcast station's over-the-air signal is affected by a power outage or other technical malfunction involving the main transmitter), off the air (a method used to relay broadcast stations to cable franchises in outlying areas and satellite providers), and from in-house sources and relay it to subscribers' homes. Usually, local governments award a monopoly to provide cable television service in a given area. By law, cable systems must include local broadcast stations in their offerings to customers.

Enterprising individuals soon found they could install their own satellite dishes and eavesdrop on the feeds to the cable operators. The signals were transmitted as unscrambled analog FM feeds that did not require advanced or expensive technology. Since these same satellites were also used internally by the television networks, they could also watch programs not intended for public broadcast such as affiliate feeds without commercials and/or intended for another time zone; raw footage from remote news teams; advance transmissions of upcoming programs; and live news and talk shows during breaks when those on camera might not realize that anyone outside the network could hear them.

Encrypting was introduced to prevent people from receiving pay content for free, and nearly every pay channel was encrypted by the mid-to-late 1980s. (This did not happen without protest, such as an incident in which a Florida satellite dealer intercepted the signal of HBO during a film telecast in 1986 to transmit a text-based message over color bars objecting to the network's decision to encrypt its feed.) Satellite television also began a digital transition, well before over-the-air broadcasting did the same, to increase satellite capacity and/or reduce the size of the receiving antennas; this also made it more difficult for individuals to intercept these signals. Eventually, the industry began to cater to individuals who wanted to continue to receive satellite television (and were willing to pay for it) in two ways: by authorizing the descrambling of the original satellite feeds to the cable television operators, and with new direct broadcast satellite television services using their own satellites. These latter services, which began operating in the mid-1990s, offer programming similar to cable television.

DirecTV and Dish Network are the major DBS providers in the country, with 20 and 14 million customers respectively . Meanwhile, the major cable television providers are Comcast with 22 million customers, Spectrum Cable with 11 million, and Cox Communications, Charter Communications, AT&T U-verse

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