Flagship (broadcasting)

In the United States, traditional radio networks currently operate without flagship stations as defined in this article.

Network operations and those of the local owned-and-operated or affiliated stations in the same city are now separate and may come under different corporate entities.

In the U.S., CBS News Radio produces programming for distribution by Skyview Networks, but local stations WCBS and WINS in New York City and KNX (and formerly KFWB) in Los Angeles are operated separately from the network radio news operation, under a separate company with common shareholders, Audacy, Inc. iHeartMedia follows a similar model: flagship stations WOR in New York City (which it acquired in 2012) and KFI in Los Angeles are both operated mostly separately from its syndication wing, Premiere Networks (Premiere does produce some limited programming, including The Jesus Christ Show, The Tech Guy and Handel on the Law, through KFI).

Fox Sports Radio's flagship station is KLAC in Los Angeles, with which it merged operations in 2009.

CBS Sports Radio is nominally flagshipped at WFAN (although that station does not produce programming for the network).

CloudCast is flagshipped at KZOY in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with much of its programming voicetracked from WGWE in Little Valley, New York.

[1] In the late 1920s, network owned-and-operated stations (or "O&O") for radio in New York City began producing live entertainment and news programs, fed by telephone lines to affiliates.

When television networks were formed in the United States in the late 1940s and grew during the early 1950s, network-owned stations in New York City became the production centers for programs originating on the East Coast, feeding affiliates of ABC, CBS, and NBC in the eastern three-fourths of the country.

Stations in Los Angeles similarly started producing programs on the West Coast, feeding affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, Alaska and Hawaii.

In 2006, when The WB and UPN merged to form The CW, Philadelphia station WPSG and San Francisco station KBCW (now KPYX) were designated as the network's de facto East Coast and West Coast flagships, respectively, due to CBS owning half of The CW's controlling shares at the time.

Nexstar Media Group then bought Tribune in 2019; however, it had to sell off WPIX to the E. W. Scripps Company to prevent breaching the required market ownership cap set by the FCC for each broadcaster.

Two years after WPIX returned to Nexstar control through partner company Mission Broadcasting, the Irving, Texas-based media firm announced that it would buy 75% of CW's shares in August 2022.

With the purchase completion announced on October 3, 2022, both WPIX and KTLA formally became flagship stations for the first time.

However, as part of the Nexstar agreement, Paramount was given a right with the transaction to disaffiliate all eight of their CW affiliates, which was exercised on May 5, 2023.

Meanwhile, Miami stations are also listed for Univision, Telemundo and UniMás (formerly TeleFutura) due to their operations being major production bases for those networks.

Networks designated for digital subchannels are usually flagshipped at local stations in the home cities of their corporate headquarters.

A station's importance to the system is built as much or more on the programming it produces for national distribution (a metric which places WNET as a strong third-place contender behind WGBH in Boston and WETA in Washington, D.C.) instead of local media market size.

In Major League Baseball, WPCH (Atlanta Braves) will be the flagship station for a 15-game package in their viewing region.

In a lesser arrangement, Major League Baseball teams often name a local broadcast station their official weather forecasting partner and allow them to market as such.

[10] The secondary French-language networks TVA and Noovo are not carried terrestrially in Western Canada, although they are usually available on pay television.

Likewise, prior to merging with Gannett in 2013, WFAA served as the flagship station for Belo, as its headquarters were located in Dallas.