How many broadcast stations in the us

An issue of concern to the public over the years has been violent television programming and the negative impact this broadcast material may have on children.

At the request of 39 members of the U. In April , the Commission delivered a Report to Congress recommending that the industry voluntarily commit to reducing the amount of this programming viewed by children. Since , all sets manufactured with screens 13 inches or larger must contain the V-Chip technology. This technology, which must be activated by parents, works in conjunction with a voluntary television rating system created and administered by the television industry and others.

It enables parents to identify programming containing sexual, violent, or other content that they believe may be harmful to their children. All the major broadcast networks and most of the major cable networks encode their programming with this ratings information to work with the V-Chip.

However, some programming, such as news and sporting events, and unedited movies aired on premium cable channels, are not rated.

Station Identification. Stations must air identification announcements when they sign on and off for the day. They also must broadcast these announcements every hour, as close to the start of the hour as possible, at a natural programming break. TV stations make these announcements on-screen or by voice only.

It may also include any additional community or communities, as long as it first names the community to which it is licensed by the FCC. Commercial Limits. The Commission applies these limits to all video programming, free or pay, directed to children 12 and under. Commercial TV broadcasters must maintain records to verify compliance with commercial time limits and make these records available for public inspection.

Display of Internet Website Addresses. Public service announcements aired on behalf of independent non-profit or government organizations — or media companies in partnership with non-profits or government entities — that display websites not under the control of the licensee or cable company, are exempt from the website display rules. In addition, station identifications and emergency announcements are also exempt. Host Selling.

The goal of this policy is to help children distinguish between commercials and program content. There are three applications of this separation principle: 1 bumpers between program and advertising content e.

The Commission has applied the host selling policy to the display of Internet website addresses as follows. Entities subject to commercial time limits under the CTA may not display a website address during or adjacent to a program if, at that time, on pages that are primarily devoted to free noncommercial content regarding that specific program or a character appearing in the program: 1 products are sold that feature a character appearing on that program; or 2 a character appearing in that program is used to actively sell products.

Educational and Informational Programming. Under Category A of the processing guidelines, television licensees are eligible for routine staff-level approval of the children's television programming portion of their renewal applications if they air either i three hours per week as averaged over a six month period of Core Programming or ii hours of Core Programming annually, including at least 26 hours per quarter of regularly scheduled weekly programming of at least 30 minutes in length and up to 52 hours annually of Core Programs of at least 30 minutes in length that are not aired on a regularly scheduled weekly basis, such as educational specials and regularly scheduled non-weekly programming.

Under Category B of the processing guidelines, television licensees are eligible for routine staff-level approval of the children's television programming portion of their renewal applications if they air hours of Core Programming annually, including at least 26 hours per quarter of regularly scheduled weekly programming of at least 30 minutes in length.

The remaining Core Programming hours under Category B up to 52 hours annually may consist of Core Programs that are not aired on a regularly scheduled weekly basis, including educational specials, other non-regularly scheduled programming, and regularly scheduled non-weekly programming, and short-form programming, such as public service announcements and interstitials. In addition, commercial stations must provide information identifying these programs to the publishers of program guides.

Station-Conducted Contests. A station that broadcasts or advertises information about a contest that it conducts must fully and accurately disclose the material terms of the contest and must conduct the contest substantially as announced or advertised over-the-air or on the Internet. Contest descriptions may not be false, misleading, or deceptive with respect to any material term. Material terms, include those factors that define the operation of the contest and affect participation, such as entry deadlines, the prizes that can be won, and how winners will be selected.

Federal law prohibits the broadcast of advertisements for a lottery or information concerning a lottery. A lottery is any game, contest, or promotion that contains the elements of prize, chance, and "consideration" a legal term that means an act or promise that is made to induce someone into an agreement. Many types of contests, depending on their particulars, also are covered under this definition.

The statute and FCC rules list a number of exceptions to this prohibition, principally advertisements for:. In , the Supreme Court held that the prohibition on broadcasting advertisements for lawful casino gambling could not constitutionally be applied to truthful advertisements broadcast by radio or television stations licensed in states where gambling is legal.

Relying upon the reasoning in that decision, the FCC and the United States Department of Justice later concluded that the lottery advertising prohibition may not constitutionally be applied to the broadcast of any truthful advertisements for lawful casino gambling, whether or not the state in which the broadcasting station is located permits casino gambling.

Soliciting Funds. No federal law prohibits the broadcast by stations of requests for funds for legal purposes including appeals by stations for contributions to meet their operating expenses , if the money or other contributions are used for the announced purposes. However, federal law prohibits fraud by wire, radio or television — including situations in which money solicited for one purpose is used for another — and doing so may lead to FCC sanctions, as well as to criminal prosecution by the U.

Department of Justice. Broadcast of Telephone Conversations. Before broadcasting a telephone conversation live or recording a telephone conversation for later broadcast, a station must inform any party to the call of its intention to broadcast the conversation. However, that notification is not necessary when the other party knows that the conversation will be broadcast or this knowledge can be reasonably presumed, such as when the party is associated with the station for example, as an employee or part-time reporter or originates the call during a program during which the station customarily broadcasts the calls.

Closed Captioning. Closed captioning is a technology designed to provide access to television programming by persons with hearing disabilities by displaying, in text form, the audio portion of a broadcast, as well as descriptions of background noise and sound effects. Closed captioning is hidden as encoded data transmitted within the television signal.

A viewer wanting to see the captions must use a set-top decoder or a television with built-in decoder circuitry. All television sets with screens 13 inches or larger manufactured since mid, including digital sets, have built-in decoder circuitry. As directed by Congress in the Telecommunications Act of , the FCC has adopted rules requiring closed captioning of most, but not all, television programming.

Entities that distribute television programs directly to home viewers, including broadcast stations, must comply with these rules. The rules also provide certain exemptions from the captioning requirements.

Closed captioning is also required for video programming delivered via Internet Protocol IP that is published or exhibited on television with captions. Program owners must send program files to distributors and providers with all required captions and use an agreed upon mechanism to inform the distributors and providers of the programming that is subject to the requirements. Distributors and providers must enable the rendering or pass through of all required captions to the end user.

These requirements also apply to video clips that a video programming provider or distributor posts on its website or application, if the provider or distributor showed the video clip on television with captions. For devices, the Commission adopted functional display standards to specify how covered apparatus must implement closed captioning, and it required apparatus to render or pass through closed captioning on each video output. Audio Description. As required by the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of , the FCC has adopted rules to require some, but not all, television programs to include audio description.

Information about how to activate the secondary audio is available from the customer service department of the TV manufacturer or from your subscription TV provider.

Networks, broadcasters, and subscription TV systems may provide information about the availability of programs with audio description through their websites and in program guides.

Some program guides may use the symbol D to indicate that the program is audio described. Access to Emergency Information. The FCC also requires television stations to make the local emergency information that they provide to viewers accessible to persons with disabilities. Thus, if emergency information is provided aurally, such information also must be provided in a visual format for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing. The emergency information may be closed captioned or presented through an alternative method of visual presentation.

These methods include open captioning, crawls, or scrolls that appear on the screen. The information provided visually must include critical details regarding the emergency and how to respond.

Similarly, if the emergency information is presented visually, it must be made accessible for persons who are blind or visually impaired. If the emergency information is provided in the video portion of a regularly scheduled newscast or a newscast that interrupts regular programming, it must be made accessible through an aural description of the emergency information. If the emergency information is provided visually during regular programming, such as through a screen crawl or scroll, the visual information must be accompanied with an aural tone to alert persons with visual disabilities that the station is providing this information, and that they should tune to the secondary audio stream where such information must be provided aurally.

Additional information concerning this requirement can be found on the FCC's website at Accessibility of Emergency Information on Television. Single Accounts Corporate Solutions Universities. Premium statistics. Read more. In , there were 1, commercial television stations on the air in the United States, slightly fewer than in previous years but still over a thousand more than in Over one hundred TV stations were sold in the U.

Advertising and commercial television Whilst a survey revealed that the majority of U. Companies ranging from Toyota to Taco Bell spend millions on TV advertising every week , and without that regular revenue source many TV stations would struggle to stay financially afloat.

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Student loan refinancing. Pet insurance. Paid time off. Caregiver support services. Home Research Topics. Pew Research Center July 13, Key time slots Midday and prime. Year Morning news Evening news Late night news 2,, 4,, 4,, 2,, 3,, 3,, 2,, 3,, 3,, 2,, 3,, 3,, 2,, 3,, 3,, Pew Research Center. Year Prime news Midday news 3,, 2,, 3,, 2,, 3,, 1,, 3,, 2,, 3,, 2,, Pew Research Center. Digital revenue numbers are not available prior to Numbers are updated annually.