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List of United States over-the-air television networks. In the United States, for most of the history of broadcasting, there were only three or four major commercial national terrestrial networks. From 1946 to 1956, these were ABC, CBS, NBC and DuMont. From 1956 to 1986, the "Big Three" national commercial networks were ABC, CBS, and NBC (with ...
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- Television broadcaster
A television broadcaster or television network is a...
- Television in the United States
Television is one of the major mass media outlets in the...
- Television Networks
A television network is a network to provide television...
- Big Three television networks
The Big Three networks ruled over television in the United...
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A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or, in the United States, multichannel video programming distributors.
Television is one of the major mass media outlets in the United States. In 2011, 96.7% of households owned television sets; [1] about 114,200,000 American households owned at least one television set each in August 2013. [2] . Most households have more than one set.
Learn what a television network is and how it works. Find out how some networks started as radio networks and how they broadcast different channels and programs.
- Backgrounds
- Network Competition
- Related Pages
- References
NBC and CBS were both founded as radio networks in the 1920s. Later on, NBC would have two radio networks for the United States. These networks were the Red Network and the Blue Network. They soon began television stations in the 1930s. In 1943, the U.S. governmentnoticed how unfair it was for NBC to have two networks. They forced NBC to sell one o...
Early years
For most of television history, the Big Three controlled most of television. DuMont stopped airing in 1955. From 1961 to the early 1990s, there were only three networks. Every hit series and every feature moviewas aired by one of the Big Three networks. There were attempts to become the fourth network. But they never work out. The cost of starting a network, the difficulty of competing with the Big Three and broadcastingwere common in the 1980s. The Big Three had just enough stations to defea...
Fox
An attempt for a fourth television network for the Big Three would not happen again until Fox was founded in October 1986. Fox became a fourth network in 1994 after a law forcing cable providers to add local stationswas approved. The rules allowed Fox to become recognized by most audiences and become the fourth network. Fox has beaten ABC and NBC in the ratings for its primetime programming. This made Fox become the second most-watched network behind CBS during the 2000s. From 2007 to 2008, F...
Fifth and sixth networks
Other networks soon launched in an attempt to compete with the Big Three as well as Fox. However, these "netlets" were not as successful as Fox. The WB and UPNlaunched in 1995. Just like Fox, they both added nights of prime time programming a few years later. The WB was the only one that aired any on weekends. Both networks only aired prime time and children's programming. The children's programming was the only form of weekday daytime programming offered by either one. UPN discontinued its c...
Douglas Blanks Hindman; Kenneth Wiegand (2008). "The big three's prime-time decline: a technological and social context" (PDF). Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. Retrieved March 19, 2014Kisseloff, Jeff (1995). The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961. New York: Viking. ISBN 0-670-86470-6. OCLC 32310909.H. Castleman; W. Podrazik (1982). Watching TV: Four Decades of American Television. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 314.Schneider, Michael (2016-12-27). "Most-Watched Television Networks: Ranking 2016's Winners and Losers | IndieWire". www.indiewire.com. Retrieved 2017-08-11.6 days ago · Learn about the history and shows of American TV, from its early days to the Golden Age of comedy and drama. Explore the influence of TV on global popular culture and the role of networks, stars, and genres.
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The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network that serves as the flagship property of the Disney Entertainment division of the Walt Disney Company.
