As such, when the networks launched their television operations, they found it more advantageous to put their five owned-and-operated stations in large media markets that had more households (and therefore, denser populations) on the belief that it would result in higher revenue.
The FCC reversed the trade in 1965 and NBC regained control of the Cleveland television station, which is today known as WKYC.
[1] Still, O&Os in the United States are primarily found in large markets such as New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago, among others.
Local television stations in the United States were concentrated on the VHF dial (channels 2–13) in the early days of the industry.
As such, the "Big Three" networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) were still not inclined to acquire UHF stations as network-owned outlets; however, ABC did keep Fresno's KFSN (which was a CBS affiliate at the time the deal was reached) after the network merged with Capital Cities Communications in 1986, as KFSN was the highest-rated station in a market where all of the full-power television stations were on the UHF band, along with the fact it saw the advantage of having a statewide network to share California news coverage and events with, using the resources of KFSN, KGO-TV, and KABC-TV.
NBC would not buy a UHF O&O again until 1995, when it acquired WNCN (channel 17) in Goldsboro, North Carolina (part of the Raleigh–Durham market).
On February 7, 2007, CBS announced the sale of its owned-and-operated stations in Salt Lake City (KUTV and its satellite in St. George, Utah, KUSG) and Austin (KEYE-TV) to Four Points Media Group, a holding company owned by Cerberus Capital Management as part of a group deal which also included two CW owned-and-operated stations (WTVX in West Palm Beach and WLWC in Providence), one low-power MyNetworkTV affiliate and one low-power Azteca América affiliate (both located in West Palm Beach).
Westinghouse only agreed to the trade after NBC threatened not only to yank its programming from WPTZ, but also Westinghouse-owned WBZ-TV (channel 4) in Boston.
NBC's then-ownership of Philadelphia's channel 3 was cited by CBS when it purchased its then-affiliate WCAU-TV in 1958, despite FCC rules at the time barring companies from owning stations with overlapping signals, as WRCA/WRCV did.
In 1965, NBC was forced to reverse the trade on orders from the Federal Communications Commission and the United States Department of Justice.
NBC continued to pursue efforts to acquire an owned-and-operated station in Philadelphia, especially when KYW became its weakest major-market affiliate for much of the 1980s.
On March 19, 2008, NBC announced its intention to sell two additional O&Os: WTVJ in Miami and WVIT in New Britain-Hartford, Connecticut.
On July 18 of that year, it was announced that WTVJ would be sold to Post-Newsweek Stations (now the Graham Media Group), then owner of Miami's ABC affiliate WPLG (channel 10).
The sale of WTVJ also fell through due to the delay in FCC approval for the deal, the election of Barack Obama as president effectively de facto signaling a rejection of the deal from a Democratic-led FCC board of commissioners was coming, and public opposition over the proposed sale of WTVJ to the owner of another major network station.
However, when Capital Cities Communications acquired ABC in 1985, the combined assets of the new company exceeded the FCC's ownership limit at the time.
During the series of network affiliation switches that was spurred by Fox's 1994 deal with New World Communications, ABC bought two stations in markets adjacent to Detroit: WTVG (channel 13) in Toledo, Ohio and WJRT (channel 12) in Flint, Michigan – specifically in order to keep some fringe suburban coverage of its programming in the Detroit market, in the event that Scripps would attempt to affiliate WXYZ-TV with another network, resulting in a possible move of ABC to a lower-tier station in the market.
Capital Cities also owned two CBS affiliates – Fresno's KFSN and Raleigh-Durham's WTVD (channel 11) – and chose to switch them both to ABC.
When the waiver to retain ownership of both the newspaper and television station expired, WFXT was sold to the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
On December 21 of that year, it was announced that eight of the stations – WHBQ being the only one not included – would be sold to Local TV, a broadcast holding company controlled by the private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners;[18] the sale closed on July 14, 2008.
Of the eight former Fox O&Os involved in the sale to Local TV, WBRC ended up being traded to Raycom Media on March 31, 2009, in exchange for Richmond, Virginia CBS affiliate WTVR-TV (channel 6); WBRC was subsequently acquired by Gray Television as part of its merger with Raycom, which was completed on January 2, 2019.
The remaining seven former Fox O&Os were acquired by Tribune Broadcasting as part of its purchase of Local TV, an acquisition that closed on December 27, 2013.
As was the case with Sinclair's failed acquisition of the company, Fox sought to buy certain Fox-affiliated stations owned by Tribune, with KDVR, KCPQ, and WJW emerging as potential candidates.
Scripps Company; Nexstar intended to retain KSWB, KTXL, WJW, KCPQ, and KDVR after the transaction is completed.
As a result of its partnership, in November 1993 (fourteen months before the network debuted), Tribune agreed to a deal to affiliate most of its independent stations with The WB.
[39] Despite Tribune's minority stake, the company's stations were not considered to be WB owned-and-operated-stations due to Time Warner's controlling interest in the network.
Tribune, however, does not have an ownership interest in The CW, having opted to forego a stake in the network in order to avoid having to finance shutdown costs for The WB.
ACME Communications, which operated WB-affiliated stations in small and mid-sized markets, was owned by Jamie Kellner, the network's president from its 1995 launch until 2001.
The other UPN stations that remained under Fox ownership retained their affiliations with that network, but were no longer O&Os – giving UPN the distinction of being one of only two broadcast networks whose stations in the three largest markets of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago were not owned-and-operated stations (along with The WB); WWOR-TV (channel 9) in Secaucus, New Jersey (part of the New York City market) and KCOP-TV (channel 13) in Los Angeles were de facto O&Os prior to Viacom's buyout of Chris-Craft's stake in UPN, while WPWR-TV (channel 50) in Chicago was an affiliate of UPN throughout the network's run (and would not be co-owned with the two other larger-market stations until after Fox purchased it from Newsweb Corporation in 2002).
Until the sale closed on August 4, WGNT was the smallest station by market size to be owned by CBS following the Four Points Media Group deal.
In October 2022, Nexstar Media Group purchased a majority stake in The CW from Paramount Global and Warner Bros.