How does TV work in the US compared to UK?
zeebre12
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I looked on the web but couldn't understand all the terms and language..How do TV channels work in the US?,can someone explain in simple English how it works.. are there the main channels like ABC,CBS,NBC,Fox, the CW, and PBS that are the equilevent of our main channels-BBC1,BBC2,ITV,Channel 4 and channel 5..but they only show the same programmes to the whole country in the evening or something like that?, then what programmes do these channels show all the rest of the day?, also in the UK we get Freeview with lots of channels like BBC's, More4, GOLD,Alibi etc..what channels do people in the US get if they don't have satellite?what are the channels like with letters like KHDA that you see, are they local channels like we are now getting in the UK (London Live)?
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The ones "with the letters" are kind of as you thought - local channels. Some are fully owned by the main networks, others are "affiliated" ("network affiliates"). They will show stuff from the main network they are linked to, along with syndicated programming, and local programming.
Then you also have cable TV... Some cable channels are "basic" (free, ad supported) like AMC (Mad Men, The Walking Dead) and FX (Sons of Anarchy), while others are "premium" (paid), like HBO (Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire) and Showtime (Homeland, Dexter).
The US also has satellite TV providers, which I think carry the same as what people can get via terrestrial (broadcast) or cable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_affiliate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_syndication
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United_States#Basic_cable
The US equivalent of the UK terrestrial channels are the networks ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, The CW, and PBS, but unlike the UK channels, they are literally "networks," each consisting of hundreds of local TV stations in cities and towns all across America. They are kind of like rival alliances. These local TV stations each have four-letter names -- like your example of "KHDA." One doesn't need cable or satellite to receive these networks. They broadcast a signal over the air that any home with an antenna can pick up and the resident need never pay any money. There is no licence fee or anything like it. PBS has no ads but the others do. In well-populated areas there are more free channels available that are not part of any kind of national networks. The way the networks work is that the 24 hour day is divided into different sections. In certain sections the network headquarters in New York or Los Angeles decides what will be scheduled uniformly throughout the country, and in the sections for other parts of the day the local stations each decide what to schedule.
Beside the networks and local broadcast channels, there are the cable/satellite channels. These fall into two groups. "Basic cable" channels have ads and they automatically come with the cable/satellite service. These are very large in number, and among them are AMC, FX, TNT, USA, History, A&E, and BBC America. People who have cable/satellite also have the option of subscribing to specific "premium cable" channels that have no ads but each cost an extra $10 to $20 a month. Channels like HBO, Showtime, and Starz are premium cable channels. I should also mention that cable subscribers will get (as part of their service) the local affiliates for the networks in their area. I am not sure if that goes for satellite as well. One development that began a number of years ago on the west coast is the ability to get network affiliates from the east coast of the US as part of one's cable package. This means that if you are in California (for example) and want to watch a network show scheduled for 9 pm at 6 pm instead, you have that option.
Not sure about Fox and The CW, but ABC, NBC, and CBS each have early morning shows that are a combination of news and what you in the UK call a "chat" show. Later in the morning ABC and CBS have female-oriented chat shows comparable to your "Loose Women." Later in the day there are some daily soaps. PBS has children's shows like Sesame Street in the morning. Most of the day schedules are left up to the local affiliates to fill. These open time slots tend to be filled with "syndicated" shows -- chat shows like Oprah and court shows like Judge Judy that had to be sold local station by local station by a "syndicator." Local stations also local news broadcasts at different times throughout the day.
Remove PBS from that because they really don't air the same kind of things as the commercial networks and network affiliates. PBS is kind of the equivalent of BBC4. But otherwise yes, the network affiliation of a local station that buys a syndicated show is irrelevant. Judge Judy might be on the Fox station in Chicago, but on the NBC one in Oklahoma City. I will also note that the local station gets exclusive rights to the show for its area, so if the ABC station in Seattle buys Judge Judy, the syndicator can't turn around a sell Judge Judy to the CBS station in Seattle as well.
During primetime the same shows air simultaneously in the east and central time zones from 8:00 PM ET - 11:00PM ET (7:00 PM CT - 10:00 PM CT). But Fox and CW only air two hours of primetime programming so it ends at 10:00 PM ET (9:00 CT.) For the mountain time zone the shows are tape delayed and air locally from 7:00 PM MT - 10:00 PM MT. The west coast airs primetime programming from 8:00 PM PT - 11:00 PM PT. On broadcast television you will frequently hear an advertisement for a show saying it airs at 10/9 Central, which means it will air locally at 10 PM on the east and west coasts and 9PM in the central and mountain time zones.
Let me give you a typical weekday schedule for an NBC Affiliateon the east coast.
4:00 AM - 4:30 AM - Early Today, a national morning news program.
4:30 AM - 7:00 AM - Locally produced newscasts. The majority of stations air local news during this entire time period, some may tape delay Early Today and air it from 4:30-5:00 AM and start their local news at 5:00 AM. Technically this time period is free for the affiliates to program how they want but NBC only requires news from 6:30 - 7:00 AM.
7:00 AM - 11:00 AM - The Today Show, a national morning news / entertainment program, the local stations do local updates for four minutes at :26 and :56 past the hour.
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM - Local station time, most air syndicated programming while others do newscasts.
12:00 PM - 12:30 PM - Local News (Some stations may air news for an hour, while a select few don't have a mid day news cast and offer syndicated programming.)
12:30 PM - 1:00 PM - Syndicated programming (a lot of stations rerun the prior nights syndicated entertainment show like ET or Access Hollywood.)
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM - Days of our Lives, a national soap opera. This is the recommend time for air but some stations choose to play syndicated frog rams at this hour and delay it until 2:00 PM.
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM - Syndicated programming that's usually an hour long.
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM - Some stations air local news while others save their highest rated syndicated program like Ellen for this hour.
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM - Local news. (There may be a few rogue stations that don't have news at the 5:00PM hour but NBC requires a half hour broadcast preceding Nightly News.)
6:30 PM - 7:00 PM - NBC Nightly News live broadcast (some may tape delay this program until 7PM for an additional half hour of local news.)
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM - Prime access, a time period where stations usually air half hour syndicated programming like Jeopardy or an entertainment show.
8:00 PM - 11:00 PM - Prime time programming provided by NBC. Shows are usually a half hour or an hour long, while others like The Voice are two. Shows always start either at the top or the bottom of the hour. The only time affiliates can preempt programming is for breaking news or if they buy a syndicated NFL game (stations are only allowed a few sports preemptions a year.)
11:00 PM - 11:34 PM - Local news as required by NBC.
11:34 PM - 12:36 AM - The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
12:36 AM - 1:37 AM - Late Night with Seth Meyers
1:37 AM - 2:07 AM - Last Call with Carson Daly
2:07 AM - 3:00 AM - A repeat of the 10:00 AM hour of Today (NBC allows this to be preempted for a repeat of that days syndicated Meredith Vieira Show, which they produce and syndicate.)
3:00 AM - 4:00 AM - A rerun of Mad Money from CNBC (NBC allows this show to be preempted if you air that days rerun of one of their own syndicated shows.)
ABC and CBS generally follow this schedule except they air an early morning news show from about 2:30 - 4:00 AM and their national breakfast programs are only two hours long. ABC only offers four hours of syndicated programming from 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM, where the other hours are occupied with chat shows and soaps. CBS only offers three and a hours in the same time period, they fill the rest of the time like ABC but with two hours of game shows.
Sorry I didn't see this post before I posted my previous post. PBS is more of a programming service where they offer primetime programming and recommend a schedule but the stations are free to move certain shows around. PBS airs a lot of British imports during prime time. Other hours the stations can fill with their own productions or they can buy shows from other PBS member stations and some buy shows from non PBS affiliated public television stations (these stations like PBS are typically member supported but aren't PBS members.)
One non PBS member station out in Los Angeles acts as a syndicator for both BBC World News and NHK where there are four half hour newscasts made available. The most popular syndicated BBC newscast is BBC World News America with Katty Kay which airs at 5:30 PM ET / 22:30 GMT.
PBS doesn't air commercials during programs but prior to the start of a show and at the end they air a few minutes of commercials. The commercials aren't like the ones that air on traditional broadcast networks rather they are more elegant and high end.
One slight correction all basic cable networks are essentially free and ad supported but they also generate revenue by subscriber fees. Subscriber fees range from 10¢ a subscriber for the lower rated channels while more popular ones are about $1 or more. ESPN commands the most at $5 just to access the main ESPN channel, while when you factor in the other ESPN networks you pay about $8 total. Frequently cable networks require channels to be bundled together forcing the cable company to carry a lower rated network if you want the higher rated sister network. To continue using NBC as an example they require cable company to carry and pay for all of their channels (MSNBC, CNBC,E!, Bravo, SyFy, NBCSN, Esquire, Oxygen, USA, Sprout and a few others) even if they only wanted to carry three.
Here in the US you will occasionally here a bundle of cable channels being pulled because the cable channel owners and the cable companies play hardball. The channels almost always want an increase while the cable companies don't want to pay more because that will cause customers rates to increase.
Syndication is essentially the reselling of old shows to the many & various affiliate stations across the US to fill their non-primetime programming needs, i.e. "repeats"! Syndication is the holy grail for any programme to achieve, as it can be a constant and lucrative revenue stream for years (or even decades) after a programme was originally made, and can even lead to the show gaining a vast new audience - the original "Star Trek" was legendarily a moderate flop when first shown, but became massive when constantly repeated in syndication. 88 is the supposed "magic number" for the minimum number of episodes required for syndication - this is so a station can show a series once every weekday continuously in a 4 month block, 3 times a year (or alternate with other programmes of course.)
At the more trivial end of things, the "K" & "W" channel naming system is derived from the assignment of callsigns to various countries for “International Radiotelegraphs" at the beginning of the last century, and later applied to radio & TV stations. America was allocated W & K for commercial use, and N & A for military use (Canada got C!) More rules came later requiring names to be four letters in length, with stations east of the Mississippi River using the "W" prefix, and stations west of the Mississippi starting with "K"...
He's referring to off network syndication involving a Prime time tv show is generally eligible for syndication once it reaches 100 episodes, if it will be broadcast as a strip (i.e. 1 show same slot, Monday - Friday). A 100 episodes gives viewers 20 weeks to get through the series and enough time that repeating the cycle wouldn't be viewed as too soon. Seinfeld is still king in reruns despite going off air 16 years ago.
There's another type of syndication of day time talk shows and there seems to be hundreds of them. I am just going to spew off some names and hope you recognize one, if so that's a syndicated show. The Ellen Degerenes Show; The Meredith Vieira Show, Rachel Ray; Jerry Springer; Steve Wilkos; Maury; Trisha Goddard; Oprah; Live with Kelly and Michel; Steve Harvey; Dr Oz; Queen Latifah; The Doctors; Steve Harvey are all syndicated programs. Hopefully one or two of them you've seem.
That said, the key reason for almost all of this is geography. Take whatever considerations the UK has to have to carry programming in England vs. Wales vs. Scotland vs. Northern Ireland and magnify them by about 200.
Where available, its a 'basic cable' network.
Yes, WGBH is the PBS station in Boston. I have often wondered what it is about the PBS organizational structure that makes it so common to see "WGBH" listed as a producer instead of "PBS," especially when the shows air over the entire PBS network.
PBS is in some ways the opposite of the major networks. Rather than being a separate body which provides programming to distribute to affiliates to broadcast, it is collectively owned by its member stations who produce programming to make available to the other stations. So a more bottom-up rather than top-down structure.
It is somewhat similar to the original federal model for ITV in the UK.
WGBH continues to co-produce a lot of British dramas, although it now does so under the Masterpiece brand.
Do pure 'cable' channels like HBO have advertising as well as subscription.
Do local affiliates ever change their allegiances? Is there a subsidy that locks a local affiliate into broadcast agreements?
How are the likes of Netflix and Amazon challenging these traditional models?
WBX4 Fox News 13 actually mean?
Is it channel 13 on your TV or STB? And where does the WB and the X4 come from. I've had a read through most of this thread, and the WB seems to come from old broadcast or ham radio type naming. West of the big river is B, east is W etc.
MeTV is kind of like a network, but is really a group of local stations that are letting their schedules be programmed by a syndicator of reruns of "classic" American TV series from the 1950's to 1970's. I think the other things you mention are similar kinds of syndication arrangements with local stations. Your question is not really answerable for the US as a whole. If an American doesn't have cable or satellite, his TV is simply "local TV," and what local broadcasters there are in any given part of the US outside of the five commercial broadcast networks and PBS varies widely. There is no such thing as UK-style national "freeview" in America.
No, the "premium" cable channels (like HBO) that one has to specifically ask their cable provider for and pay extra for have ZERO ads. They are just like the BBC in that way. But the "basic" cable channels that automatically come with the cable service do have ads.
Yes, local stations sometimes do change network allegiances. Back in the days when there was an American network called UPN, CBS's Seattle affiliate KIRO left CBS and went to UPN, then a few years later they went back to CBS.:) I don't know about any subsidies so can't speak to that.
They are just serving as more competition for viewers, and of course fueling the predictions of people who say that in the long run TV as we know it will simply die out, or change so much that everything will be different than it is now.
In the UK satellite took off before cable was ever laid. How is satellite seen in the USA, is it for areas that don't have easy cable access?
Same or similar content, or just another access method?
Well, first of all, there wouldn't be a number after "WBX." It would be four letters. Those four letters would be the name of the local TV station. Fox would be the network the station is an affiliate of. 13 would be the channel locally that people have to tune to in order to watch. And the "News" part means that it is the local news programme that the local station produces and that doesn't have anything to do with Fox's national news coverage.