Within the broadcasting commerce (considerably in North America, and rather more inside the USA), a group affiliate or affiliated station is a neighborhood broadcaster, owned by a corporation other than the proprietor of the group, which carries some or all the lineup of television packages or radio packages of a television or radio group. This distinguishes such a television or radio station from an owned-and-operated station (O&O), which is owned by the mother or father group. However this distinction, it’s common in casual speech (even for networks or O&Os themselves) to hunt recommendation from any station, O&O or in any other case, that carries a particular community’s programming as an affiliate, or to verify with the standing of carrying such programming in a given market as an affiliation”. Stations which carry a group’s programming by technique of affiliation preserve a contractual settlement, which might allow the group to dictate positive necessities {that a} station ought to conform to as a part of the contract (resembling programming clearances, native programming quotas or reverse compensation of a share of a station’s retransmission consent revenue to the group).
Affiliation contracts normally final between three and 5 years, although contracts have run for as little as one yr or so long as ten as well as, if a corporation owns two or additional stations affiliated with the identical group, affiliation contracts could have finish-of-term dates that are the an identical or differ amongst that agency’s associates, relying on when a particular station’s affiliation settlement was both beforehand renewed or initially signed. Whereas many television and radio stations preserve affiliations with the an identical group for many years, occasionally, there are explicit elements that may lead a group to maneuver its programming to a distinct station (such because the proprietor of a community shopping for a station other than that which the community is already affiliated with, the group choosing to affiliate with one other native station so as to improve native viewership of its programming by aligning with a stronger station, or a dispute between a community and station proprietor whereas negotiating a contract renewal for a specific station similar to these over reverse compensation shares), normally on the tip of 1 community’s present contract with a station.
Nonetheless, even the most important markets may have community associates in lieu of O&Os. As an example, Mission Broadcasting’s WPIX serves as the brand new York Metropolis affiliate of The CW (owned collectively by Warner Bros. Paramount owns unbiased station WLNY-Television in that market. Alternatively, a number of totally different tv stations within the an identical market – WABC-Television (ABC), WCBS-Television (CBS), WNBC (NBC), WNJU (Telemundo), WNYW (Fox), WWOR-Television (MyNetworkTV), WPXN-Television (Ion Tv), WXTV-DT (Univision) and WFUT-DT (UniMás) – are O&Os. The identical rule exists in Japan, wherein legal guidelines ruled by the Ministry of Inner Affairs and Communications restrict the variety of network-owned business television stations as a share of full nationwide market attain. As such, enterprise networks are inclined to have O&Os solely within the 4 largest media markets (Kantō, Keihanshin, Chūkyō, and Fukuoka), and depend on associates to carry their programming in several prefectures. Nonetheless, there are two foremost exceptions to the foundations.