Television network

Headquarters of TV Tokyo in Tokyo, Japan.

A television network is a network to provide television programming to many television stations. It is almost always a large company. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was mainly done by a small number of broadcast networks. Many early television networks (for example, the RPN, NHK General TV, Canal Once, CBS, ABC, Channel 4, PTV, CBC, BBC or PBS) began as radio networks.

A television network may broadcast many television channels. For example, BBC is a television network. It broadcasts its programs on many different channels including BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Parliament, BBC News, BBC World News, CBeebies, BBC Four and CBBC. Each channel will often have a group of programs that are similar in some way. For example, CBBC broadcasts children programs. The individual companies that create the content are television studios. A studio is often an affiliate of a network. For example, WAVY is a station in Hampton Roads, Virginia. It is an affiliate of the NBC network. WAVY is also the name of the channel that the studio creates and broadcasts locally on channel 10. It is called WAVY10.