broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...

, sister stations or sister channels are

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ear ...

s operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and sometimes one station is on the

AM band Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the dayti ...

while another is on the

FM band The FM broadcast band is a range of radio frequencies used for FM broadcasting by radio stations. The range of frequencies used differs between different parts of the world. In Europe and Africa (defined as International Telecommunication Union ( ...

. Conversely, several types of sister-station relationships exist in television; stations in the same city will usually be

affiliate Affiliation or affiliate may refer to: * Affiliate (commerce), a legal form of entity relationship used in Business Law * Affiliation (family law), a legal form of family relationship * Affiliate marketing * Affiliate network or affiliation pla ...

d with different

television network A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay television providers. Until the mid- ...

s (often one with a major network and the other with a secondary network), and may occasionally shift

television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising ...

s between each other when local events require one station to interrupt its network feed. Sister stations in separate (but often nearby) cities owned by the same company may or may not share a network affiliation. For example,

WNYW WNYW (channel 5) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside Secaucus, New Jersey–licensed MyNetworkTV flagship ...

and

WWOR-TV WWOR-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area as the Flagship (broadcasting), flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned-and-operated station, owned and operated by Fox Te ...

, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

and

Secaucus, New Jersey Secaucus ( ) is a Town (New Jersey), town in Hudson County, New Jersey, Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the town's population was 16,264,Fox Corporation Fox Corporation (stylized in all-caps as FOX Corporation) is a publicly traded American mass media company operated and controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. Incorporated ...

. WNYW is a Fox

owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an network af ...

; WWOR-TV is a MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station.

WPSG WPSG (channel 57) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS owned-and-operated station KYW-TV (channel 3). Both stations share stu ...

in Philadelphia and KBCW in San Francisco are the flagship stations of

The CW ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...

and are owned by

CBS Television Stations CBS News and Stations (formerly CBS Television Stations) is a division of the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global that owns and operates a group of American television stations. , Paramount owns 28 stations, broken down as follows: ...

. In addition, stations in different cities affiliated with the same network, but not sharing an ownership tie, may refer to each other informally as sister stations. Sister networks or sister channels, in many cases, are cable or satellite channels which are launched to either broadcast series which either premiered on the main network but has been moved out of the higher-priority schedule (such as

TV Land TV Land is an American pay television channel owned by Paramount Global through its networks division. Originally a spinoff of Nick at Nite consisting exclusively of classic television shows, the channel now airs a combination of recent and cl ...

or Boomerang), fulfill a specific niche of content which would not be fulfilled on the main network (such as

Nick Jr. Nick Jr. (known on-air as the Nick Jr. Channel) is an American pay television channel spun off from Nickelodeon's long-running programming block of the same name. It is run by Paramount Global through its networks division's Kids and Family Gr ...

Nicktoons Nicktoons is a collective name used by Nickelodeon for their original animated series. All Nicktoons are produced partly at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio and list Nickelodeon's parent company (Viacom, now known as Paramount Global) in their ...

) or broadcast to a wider audience than the main network (such as

CNN International CNN International (CNNI, simply branded on-air as CNN) is an international television channel that is owned by CNN Global. CNN International carries news-related programming worldwide; it cooperates with sister network CNN's national and inter ...

or Al Jazeera English). However, in other cases, these cable or satellite channels may only share common ownership. The establishment and proliferation of sister networks on cable, satellite and internet providers has become easier and more commercially profitable over the history of such media venues.

References

Television terminology Radio broadcasting {{Radio-broadcast-stub

See also

References