Television in the United States
Television is one of the major mass media outlets in the United States. In 2011, 96.7% of households owned television sets; about 114,200,000 American households owned at least one television set each in August 2013. Most households have more than one set. The percentage of households owning at least one television set peaked at 98.4%, in the 1996–1997 season. In 1948, 1 percent of U.S. households owned at least one television; in 1955, 75 percent did. In 1992, 60 percent of all U.S. households had cable television subscriptions. However, this number has fallen to 40% in 2024.
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 American networks are the most widely syndicated internationally. Because of a surge in the number and popularity of critically acclaimed television series in the 2000s and the 2010s, many critics have said that American television has entered a modern golden age; 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 and four conventional types of multichannel subscription television: cable, unencrypted satellite, direct-broadcast satellite television and Internet Protocol Television. OTA is the earliest method of receiving television programming, which only 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 and ultra high frequency.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 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 and must comply with certain requirements 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, 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, rather than singularly. Most conventional subscription television services offer a limited basic 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 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 ; 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 channels that are offered as add-ons to any programming package that a customer of a multichannel video programming distributor 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. 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, 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 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, or an exclusive or primary affiliation with a low-power station with more limited signal coverage.
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 stations produce only local news programs, and in some cases, public affairs programs ; 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 ; 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", which allows broadcasters to count ownership of UHF stations by 50% of the station's audience reach.
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, 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 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.