Independent station
Some independent stations, mostly those once having been affiliated with a major network, produce substantial amounts of news and public affairs programming.
The model for these stations was WSVN in Miami, an NBC affiliate that switched to Fox in January 1989 and dramatically expanded its news output.
Independents that were on the air during this period would sign-on at times later than that of stations affiliated with a television network, some not doing so until the early or mid-afternoon hours.
As cable television franchises began to be incorporated around the United States during the 1960s and 1970s, independent stations from large and mid-sized markets were imported by these systems via wire or microwave relay to smaller media markets, which often only had stations that were affiliated with the Big Three television networks (ABC, NBC and CBS); these independents became the first "superstations," which were distributed on a statewide or regional basis.
In December 1976, Ted Turner decided to uplink his struggling Atlanta, Georgia station WTCG to satellite for national distribution.
Soon, other companies decided to copy Turner's idea and applied for satellite uplinks to distribute other stations; WGN-TV in Chicago, KTVU in Oakland-San Francisco, and WPIX and WOR-TV in New York City would begin to be distributed nationally during the late 1970s and early 1980s (in the case of KTVU, it would revert to being a regional superstation by the early part of the latter decade).
They counterprogrammed local network-affiliated stations' news programs with syndicated reruns – usually sitcoms and hour-long dramas – in the early evening, and movies during prime time and late night hours.
Some stations in larger markets (such as WGN-TV in Chicago; KTLA, KCOP-TV and KHJ-TV in Los Angeles; KWGN-TV in Denver; and (W)WOR-TV, WPIX and WNEW-TV in New York City) ventured into local news broadcasts, usually airing at 10:00 p.m. in the Eastern and Pacific time zones, and 9:00 p.m. in the Central and Mountain time zones.
From the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, independent stations in several U.S. cities, particularly those that had yet to receive a cable franchise, carried a form of a network affiliation through subscription television networks (such as ON TV, Spectrum and SelecTV); these services – which were formatted very similarly to their pay cable counterparts – ran sports, uncut and commercial-free movies (both mainstream and pornographic, broadcasts of the latter often created legal issues that were eventually largely cleared up due to an FCC regulation that legally allowed the broadcast of programs featuring content that would otherwise be deemed indecent when broadcast "in the clear" if the encrypted signal was not visible or audible to nonsubscribers), and on some services, television specials.
As cities added cable franchises, thus allowing people to subscribe to conventional premium television networks like HBO and Showtime, nearly all of the over-the-air subscription services had shuttered operations by the end of the 1980s.
This was especially true in markets that were either located in rugged terrain or covered large areas; in these regions, cable (and later satellite) are all but essential for acceptable television.
In the 1980s, television syndicators began offering original, first-run series such as Solid Gold, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Star Search, Independent Network News and Star Trek: The Next Generation (as well as canceled network series revived for first-run syndication such as Fame, Too Close for Comfort, Charles in Charge, It's a Living and Baywatch), and made-for-television movies and miniseries like Sadat.
When a complicated six-station affiliation switch in South Florida saw WSVN in Miami switch from NBC to Fox in 1989, the station adopted a news-intensive format unlike any independent station or Fox affiliate prior, a scheduling choice initially ridiculed in local media but which quickly attracted industry attention and saw ratings success.
Several stations affiliated with The WB and UPN became independent again when the respective parent companies of those networks (Time Warner and CBS Corporation) decided to shut them down to form The CW, which launched in September 2006 with a schedule dominated by shows held over from and an affiliate body primarily made up of stations previously aligned with its two predecessors.
Another type of content being added to many independent station lineups in recent years has been brokered programming, including infomercials, home shopping and televangelist programs; the Federal Communications Commission did not allow infomercials to be broadcast on American television until 1984, but since then, it has proven to be a lucrative, if somewhat polarizing with viewers, way to fill airtime.
With the proliferation of duopolies and local marketing agreements since that point, most independent stations are operated alongside a major network affiliate (more commonly, one of either ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox), which may share syndicated programming with and/or produce newscasts in non-competitive timeslots for its unaffiliated sister.
CJON in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, while officially unaffiliated with a network, in practice airs a mix of programming sublicensed from two of Canada's main commercial networks, CTV (which it was formally affiliated with until 2002, with only CTV's news programming being carried on the station since then) and Global, rather than purchasing broadcast rights independently.
Three independent religious stations also exist in Canada: CHNU in the Fraser Valley Regional District, CIIT in Winnipeg, and CJIL in Lethbridge.
Independent stations in Japan primarily serve heavily urbanized areas and frequently band together in the purchasing of programs and sale of advertising.
