In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate, which is independently owned and carries network programming by contract. The concept of an O&O is clearly defined in the United States and Canada (and to some extent, several other countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, Argentina and Japan), where network-owned stations had historically been the exception rather than the rule. In such places, broadcasting licenses are generally issued on a local (rather than national) basis, and there is (or was) some sort of regulatory mechanism in place to prevent any company (including a broadcasting network) from owning stations in every market in the country. In other parts of the world (France, Italy, Spain, Chile, Peru, Uruguay) many television networks were given national broadcasting licenses at launch; as such, they have traditionally been mostly (or entirely) composed of owned-and-operated stations, rendering a separate notion for such a concept redundant.
Usage of the term in the United States
In the broadcasting industry, the term "owned-and-operated station" refers exclusively to stations that are owned by television and radio networks. The term "affiliate" applies only to stations that are not owned by networks but instead have contractual agreements to air programming from one of the major networks. While there may be an affiliation agreement between a network and an owned-and-operated station, this is not necessarily required and may simply be a legal technicality formalizing the relationship of separate entities under the same parent company. This does not prevent a network from dictating an owned-and-operated station's practices outside the scope of a normal affiliation agreement. For example, network programming is rarely preempted by O&Os except in cases of major breaking news of interest to the O&O's viewing area, despite individual affiliates' rights to do so. The term "station" applies to the ownership of the station. For example, a station that is owned and operated by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is referred to as an "ABC station" or an "ABC O&O." A station not owned by ABC but contracted to air the network's programming is correctly referred to as an "ABC affiliate". However, informally or for promotional purposes, affiliated stations are sometimes referred to as a network station, as in "WFAA is an ABC station" even though that ABC affiliate, in the Dallas–Fort Worth market, is owned by Tegna, Inc. A correct formal phrasing could be, "ABC affiliate WFAA is a Tegna station." Similarly, one may informally refer to "ABC affiliates" in regard to stations (including O&Os) that air ABC programming, or to "the ABC affiliation" in regard to the transfer of rights to ABC programming from an affiliate to an O&O. Some stations that are owned by companies that operate a network but air another network's programming are referred to as an affiliate of the network that they carry. For example, WPSG in Philadelphia is owned by the CBS network's parent company Paramount Global, but has no network affiliation and airs syndicated programming; it is an independent station. Prior to September 2023, WPSG aired programming from The CW, which was owned by CBS at the time; therefore, WPSG was a CW O&O prior to October 2022. The stations carrying The WB Television Network were another exception. The controlling shares in the network were held by Time Warner through its Warner Bros. division, with minority interests from the Tribune Company and, for a portion of the network's existence, the now-defunct ACME Communications. While Tribune-owned stations such as WGN-TV in Chicago, WPIX in New York City and KTLA in Los Angeles (along with most of the ACME stations) aired programming from The WB, they did not fit the standard definition of an owned-and-operated station. A similar exception existed when UPN was launched in January 1995 by co-owners Chris-Craft and Viacom. Each of the companies owned a number of stations that aired the network. However, the stations were also not considered O&Os under the initial standard definition. This ambiguity ended with Viacom's buyout of Chris-Craft's share of the network in 2000, which came not long after its merger with the previous CBS Corporation. The stations were referred to informally as "UPN O&Os" (Chris-Craft later sold its stations to Fox Television Stations, the subsidiary of the then News Corporation that primarily operates Fox's O&Os, in 2000). Following the shutdowns of UPN and The WB, CBS Corporation (former owner of UPN) and Time Warner became co-owners of The CW Television Network, which largely merged the programming from both networks onto the scheduling model used by The WB. The network launched in September 2006 on 11 UPN stations owned by CBS Corporation, and 15 WB affiliates owned by Tribune (which exchanged its ownership stake in The WB for affiliation agreements on most of its stations with the new CW network). Certain UPN and WB affiliates in markets where Tribune and CBS both owned stations carrying those networks either picked up a MyNetworkTV affiliation or became independent stations. The standard definition of an O&O again does not apply to The CW, but the CBS-owned stations that carry the network were referred to as "CW O&Os" (Time Warner, later known as WarnerMedia, did not own any station except one during its existence). After Nexstar Media Group (who acquired Tribune in 2019) brought a 75% interest in The CW (Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery, who respectively succeeded CBS Corporation and WarnerMedia, each retain 12.5% ownership), all of the Nexstar-owned CW affiliates became O&Os. Some O&Os choose to refer to themselves as "network-owned stations" instead, reflecting the fact that while they may be owned by a national network, much of the operation is usually left to the discretion of the local station.
Distribution
Asia Pacific
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