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. From 1954 to 1970, National Educational Television was the national clearinghouse for public TV programming; the Public Broadcasting Service succeeded it in 1970.
Today, more than fifty national free-to-air networks exist. Other than the non-commercial educational PBS, which is composed of member stations, the largest terrestrial television networks are the traditional Big Three television networks. Many other large networks exist, however, notably Fox and The CW which air original programming for two hours each night instead of three like the original "Big Three" do, as well as syndication services like MyNetworkTV and Ion Television which feature reruns of recent popular shows with little to no original programming. Fox has just about the same household reach percentage as the Big Three, and is therefore often considered a peer to ABC, NBC, and CBS since it has also achieved equal or better ratings since the late 1990s; as of 2019, it also programs the equivalent amount of sports programming as the Big Three. Most media outlets now include Fox in what they refer to as the "Big Four" TV networks.
The transition to digital broadcasting in 2009 has allowed for television stations to offer additional programming options through digital subchannels, one or more supplementary programming streams to the station's primary channel that are achieved through multiplexing of a station's signal. A number of new commercial networks airing specialty programming such as movies, reruns of classic series and lifestyle programs have been created from companies like Weigel Broadcasting, Luken Communications and even owners of the major networks such as Fox Corporation, ViacomCBS, The Walt Disney Company and Comcast. Through the use of multicasting, there have also been a number of new Spanish-language and non-commercial public TV networks that have launched.
Free-to-air networks in the U.S. can be divided into five categories:
Each network sends its signal to many local affiliate television stations across the country. These local stations then air the "network feed," with programs broadcast by each network being viewed by up to tens of millions of households across the country. In the case of the largest networks, the signal is sent to over 200 stations. In the case of the smallest networks, the signal may be sent to just a dozen or fewer stations.
As of the 2016–17 television season, there are an estimated 118.4 million households in the U.S. with at least one TV set.

Table of networks

All of the networks listed below operate a number of terrestrial TV stations. In addition, several of these networks are also aired on pay television services.

Information on networks

Conventional commercial networks

Additionally, several of the cable-oriented theme channels have obtained broadcast clearances, usually on low-power stations, in many markets. Among these are Home Shopping Network, and EVINE Live.

Spanish-language commercial networks

Additionally, Televisa, which distributes programming to Univision in the United States, operates in Mexico, but the company's networks have certain stations which can be received in parts of the U.S. located along and near the Mexican border, and likewise with the American networks have affiliates located or receivable in Mexican border cities. Some Mexican border stations who formerly maintained affiliations with U.S.-based English or Spanish networks, but mainly targeted their programming at their American border city.
Although the English-language programming model in the U.S. traditionally relies on the network and its stations handling programming responsibilities, Spanish language networks handle most of the responsibility for programming, while affiliates are limited to breakaways from the network feed to provide local news, public affairs and/or entertainment programming as well as local advertising. As such, all Spanish language networks primarily available on broadcast TV operate national feeds that are distributed to cable and satellite providers in markets without a local affiliate. Spanish-language independent stations also exist, though, these are very limited and mainly exist in large markets.

Public/cultural/educational non-commercial

Several religious networks allow their broadcast affiliates to carry their programming out-of-pattern through clearance arrangements, notably TBN, 3ABN, Hope Channel and World Harvest Television.

Defunct networks