A television network is a distribution network for television content whereby a central operation provides programming for many television stations. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small number of broadcast networks. Many early television networks (e.g. the BBC, NBC or CBS) evolved from earlier radio networks. It may be confused with a television channel.
A network may or may not produce its own primetime programmes. If not, production houses such as Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures can distribute their content to the different networks and it is common that a certain production house may have programmes on two or more rival networks.
Within the industry, a tiering is sometimes created among groups of networks based on whether their programming is simultaneously originated from a central point, and whether the network master control has the technical and administrative capability to take over the programming of their affiliates in real-time when it deems this necessary—the most common example being breaking national news events.
In countries where most networks broadcast identical, centrally originated content to all their stations and where most individual transmitters therefore operate only as large "repeater stations", the terms television network, television channel and television station have become interchangeable in everyday language, with only professionals in TV-related occupations continuing to make a difference between them.
However, in North America in particular, many television channels available via cable and satellite television are branded as "networks" but are not truly networks in the sense defined above, as they are singular operations - they have no affiliates or component stations. Such channels are more precisely referred to by terms such as "specialty channels" (Canada) or "cable networks" (U.S.), although the latter term is somewhat of a misnomer (however, it may be judged otherwise because cable channels are networked across the country by various cable and satellite systems).
In the U.S., television networks are simply identified as "networks" (such as ABC, CBS or NBC), while the local stations are identified by the station's call sign and city of license.
In Europe and much of Asia, Africa and South America, television networks are often more or less numbered (for example, Britain's BBC One, BBC Two, Channel 4 and Five etc, or the Netherlands' Nederland 1, Nederland 2, Nederland 3.
In Australia, television networks are identified by the channel number in the capital cities (such as Seven, Nine or Ten).
Similarly in the Philippines, VHF networks are sometimes informally referred to by the channel number they are seen on terrestrial TV in the Mega Manila area (e.g. Channel 2 or Dos for ABS-CBN) while some UHF networks have the channel numbers in their name (e.g. Studio 23 and Net 25 which are seen on channels 23 and 25 respectively). In addition, the two largest networks in the Philippines produce all their primetime programmes except for Asianovelas while other networks adopt block-time programming whose programming arrangements are similar to the relationship between a US network and station.
