Just got hands on some subscription that includes some US tv channels. I never had contact yet and am curious about the “structures” and main tv channels that most people watch (e.g. per category? Sports, News, Blockbusters, Shows, private/tax paid channels, ..).
E.g. in europe it’s common to have some channels that are tax paid/public (e.g. in Austria ORF1, ORF2; germany ARD, ZDF; Italy RAI, …). While e.g. in the german speaking countries there is only a handful of “big channels” covering something like shows, late night shows, (latest) blockbusters, sports.
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There are four main types of channels:
Network: available over the air for free
Cable: available via paid subscription to a cable or satellite provider, generally all-inclusive
Premium: available a la carte from a cable or satellite provider
Streaming-only: self-explanatory
There are major sports channels, most famously ESPN, but sports are also shown on network channels. There are also major cable news channels like CNN and Fox, but lots of network news as well. Premium channels are mostly movies and “prestige tv”.
The closest things we have to tax paid TV are PBS and AFN. [Most PBS funding comes from donations](https://www.pbs.org/foundation/areas-of-focus/sustaining-pbs/). AFN is regular TV, but retransmitted for US military personnel overseas.
TV habits are going to vary widely with age. Younger folks usually don’t watch a lot of traditional TV. They tend to watch more streaming services and custom content on YouTube.
Older people tend to pay a lot for cable or satellite TV subscriptions.
Sports fans of all ages pay a preposterous amount for access to sports. This goes back and forth as new internet streaming methods arise and the professional leagues figure out how to shut them down.
As far as cable news, I suggest avoiding it completely. None of it is news; all of it is paid political propaganda. No matter what your beliefs, one of the channels will find a way to confirm all your biases and put you in an echo chamber. It’s toxic. Don’t do it.
ESPN and NFL Network are the two big sports networks. They are far from the only networks. College conferences have their own networks, for example.
Premium channels usually include movie channels like HBO, Showtime, etc. TBH, I watch those networks for their original programming rather than the movies. HBOMax was my go-to subscription service when COVID shut down movie theaters.
let’s see, there are broadcast networks that everyone has and you don’t need to have cable to get them: ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and PBS. PBS (public broadcasting system) is the closest thing we have to a government funded channel, although only a tiny portion of its funding is actually from the government. It shows educational programming, news talk, documentaries, and British murder mysteries. ABC, NBC, etc usually show talk shows during the day, sitcoms in the evening, local news at 7, maybe more sitcoms, and then hour-long dramas, reality shows, and late night talk shows.
there are also a zillion cable channels. Some may be available with a given cable package, some may not. They mostly aren’t local and have the same programming regardless of where you are. (Exception being regional sports networks.) HBO is the best for movies and prestige TV, but I will need to get Showtime next year so I can watch S2 of Yellowjackets. If you want to watch The Shawshank Redemption, it’s probably playing on TBS right now. TCM plays old movies, The History Channel plays wack shit about aliens building the pyramids, and TLC plays exploitative stuff about people with mental problems (hoarders, very fat people, drug addicts, etc). ESPN has sports. There are so many, I’m running out of steam.
A lot of these channels have apps so if there is only one or two that you really want, it’s common you cancel cable and just subscribe to the app/use streaming services.
I have an [OTA antenna](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LSPKWUS/) and get over 40 channels totally free of charge & I live in the middle of fucking nowhere.
There’s broadcast TV, sent over-the-air that anyone can get with an antenna.
These stations generally are a part of one of five networks: NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, or PBS.
PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, is the closest thing to tax paid TV in the US. It gets most of its operating funds from donations from viewers, but it is funded in part by tax money. It has editorial independence from the government, and from donors. It’s known for producing excellent educational and children’s programming. Otherwise it shows a lot of documentaries, discussion programs about current events, and they tend to broadcast a lot of reruns of BBC programming (most people in the US who have seen British shows tend to have seen them originally on PBS stations).
The commercial networks of ABC (American Broadcasting Company), CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), NBC (National Broadcasting Company) and Fox have TV stations around the country (Fox was founded in the late 1980’s, the rest date to the early 1950’s). Those stations play a broad mix of content. They generally have morning, noon, and evening news broadcasts, play comedies in the evening, some kind of morning talk program, some local sporting events, and dramas, and for decades were the main form of TV in the US.
Broadcast TV is under a number of content restrictions from using public airwaves, such as not being allowed to use profanity or show explicit sexuality.
There’s cable TV, which you have to subscribe to, and there are dozens and dozens (probably hundreds) of channels of that, of every kind of specialty and niche interest you can imagine. Most notably is cable news, of which there are three major cable news networks: CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News. CNN was the original, created in the early 1980’s but it became famous in the early 1990’s after the Gulf War because of their great coverage of that war. MSNBC and Fox News were created in the mid 1990’s to attempt to copy the success of CNN. MSNBC was created as a joint partnership between Microsoft and NBC, and has a slightly left-leaning bias. FOX News has a right to far-right bias and is famous for being highly biased, having many ultraconservative commentators, and often having major factual errors and inconsistencies (to the point they’ve gone to court to defend the fact that most of their programs are legally “entertainment” and not technically news broadcasts). There are also cable sports networks like ESPN, which has a number of networks providing around-the-clock sports coverage of many, MANY sports.
Cable TV doesn’t have the restrictions on content that broadcast TV has.
There are premium cable channels, that you have to specifically subscribe to, like HBO (Home Box Office), Cinemax, and Showtime. You pay for each of these channels separately. Their usual niche is providing movies which aren’t available elsewhere, such as movies that were only recently in theaters and haven’t made it onto other channels yet. They also have original series which are well respected.
Then there are the streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Hulu etc. Those aren’t TV channels in the conventional sense of the word, but are rapidly replacing them in practice and can often be watched just the same on modern “smart” TV’s.
There are 4 network channels — ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox which each have local affiliates in each metro area/media market. None of these are public/tax paid. These are the channels that run morning news shows, evening national news, prime time scripted shows and big budget reality shows, many pro and major college sporting events.
PBS is government-supported public broadcasting, and is mostly kids/educational programming like Sesame Street, cooking shows, arts/history.
There are 100’s of cable channels, most offering some sort of niche. ESPN is the big sports one; CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC are news channels; Nickelodeon and Disney are kids; TNT, USA, TBS are general reruns; HGTV is home decorating and real estate; FoodNetwork is cooking and food-themed travel… lots of channels that had more defined niches have morphed to pander to lower common denominator reality TV like TLC, Discovery, SyFy
For what it’s worth, I know very few people who still have cable, and quite a few who only use streaming services.
For a traditional cable setup (or one that mirrors cable, allowing you to watch live TV), it’s typical to have one to three local news channels, some or all of the major national news channels (CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, ABC), sports channels (ESPN, FOX Sports, NBCSN, local sports), and then an assortment of reality/home-type channels that run shows about cooking, home improvement, science, true crime, and reality TV (TLC, Cooking Channel, Food Network, Lifetime, Bravo, Discovery…), scripted daytime or primetime TV (FX, ABC, others I can’t think of), and kids’ shows (Disney, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon). Sometimes also some Spanish-language shows, court TV/C-SPAN, sitcom and soap opera reruns.
Then there are subscription channels like HBO and Showtime that run scripted TV and at this point function much like streaming subscriptions if they haven’t completely moved over to that model altogether.
Edit: And PBS, which I haven’t watched in a while so I forgot about it, but others have covered it pretty well.
US TV is largely commercial-supported. It started out that way in the ’40s. PBS (Public Broadcasting System) is the closest thing we have to “tax-paid/public” in that it’s mostly viewer-supported: stations do pledge drives every few months or so asking for donations. Corporate and government funding round out the rest of PBS’s budget.
“Structure” is not broken down by category like it is on services like Pluto: on top of PBS, we have four broadcast networks available free with an antenna. Their programming varies: news in the morning, 1/2 hour of news on the evening, and then for prime time (8-11 PM) it varies based on the network: drama, comedy and talent all represent during that time. A break at 11 PM for news from the local station, then it’s back to the network for the late-night shows, then late news. Local affiliate stations fill non-network time with news or syndicated shows like recent sitcoms, talk shows, or court shows. Now that we broadcast digitally, stations also have subchannels with additional programming: MeTV is classic shows, Comet is sci-fi, etc.
Affiliate stations are spread all over the country – each of around 200 defined areas has an NBC station, a CBS station, an ABC station and a Fox station who bring network programming to a local level and supplement it with local news, as dictated by their FCC license – they have a duty to serve their communities with news and public affairs shows. Networks own these stations themselves in some larger cities; in other cities they’re owned by broadcast groups who run affiliates for all the networks around the country.
Network programming comes on cable and satellite too for areas that can’t get it with an antenna, although there’s a charge for it built into the monthly bill. Cable adds channels like CNN for news, Disney for kids’ programming, ESPN for sports, and TBS for general entertainment. Premium cable like HBO carries movies with no commercials, so there’s an extra charge for that.
CBS, and cop shows were every one talks in a circle and then there’s a lot of pew pew pew stop the bad guys, but uh no plot twist! The main bad guy is a lady who is the main character’s love interest.
Forget about tax-funded channels. That’s a very minor part of the TV landscape. There is one channel partially funded by the government in roundabout ways, and that’s it. The viewership is not particularly high and much of the programming is for things like children’s shows, nature documentaries, broadcasts of classical music and other arts and simular things. Everything else is commercial and that’s what 99% of people watch.
We don’t believe the government should be the arbiter of public speech in the US. The idea of having the government be the largest broadcaster and, in some countries, past or present, a monopoly, is an abomination. That’s not the role we want them to play here.