Regional variation

Canada

Commercial television in Canada generally used a model similar to the U.S., with networks and affiliates. However, from the 1990s through the 2000s, beginning with CTV Television and its gradual takeover by Baton Broadcasting, Canada's major commercial networks were largely consolidated under their respective conglomerate owners; CTV, Global, City, and most of their respective stations are owned by Bell Media, Corus Entertainment, and Rogers Media respectively.

The major networks, including commercially funded public network CBC Television, has largely used consistent scheduling (besides time zone variations), branding and on-air continuity, with little variation besides local newscasts and public affairs programs (for example, some CTV stations substitute the network's national morning show Your Morning for local programs, particularly CTV Morning Live). There are relatively few third-party affiliate stations of Canada's commercial networks, which typically follow the network's lineup in a major market with opt-outs for local newscasts. Corus-owned CTV affiliates substitute CTV News programs for Global News programs (and CHEX-TV-2 additionally brands as "Global Durham" despite otherwise being a CTV affiliate), while CJON-DT has more significant variations due to having sublicensed different types of programming from Global, CTV, and Yes TV.

United Kingdom

The BBC has traditionally offered regional variations across many of its services. The Home Service and its successor Radio 4 provided regional variations until the early 1980s when Local Radio took over these responsibilities. BBC One and the BBC Television Service have provided variations in the English regions throughout most of their history, and continues to do so today (mainly News and current affairs programming). In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, BBC One has to a large degree been operated as a separate television channel, rather than a variant on BBC One as broadcast in England. BBC Two has in the past broadcast variations within the English regions, though now only has variations for each of the Constituent Countries of the United Kingdom. BBC Choice also briefly had regional variations for these areas.

ITV was originally established as a network of some 14 separate companies, each designated a region of coverage (see History of ITV). Each company provided a mixture of local programming for its own coverage area, as well as airing nationwide networked programmes (usually produced by one of the contractors). ITV has traditionally included more regional variations than the BBC, though since consolidation and majority ownership by ITV plc regional variations on the network are far fewer, and often no more than the minimum requirements as set by Ofcom.

Channel 4 and Channel 5 provide no regional variations for programming or continuity, but do sell localized advertising. A notable exception was S4C, a channel in Wales which broadcast in place of Channel 4, and primarily broadcast Welsh-language programming of interest to the local audience, as well as programming acquired from Channel 4 (but not always in pattern). Although S4C was a de facto regional variation of Channel 4, it was a separate channel in its own right. During the transition to digital television, Channel 4 became available over-the-air in Wales on Freeview alongside S4C, resulting in the channel dropping its non-Welsh programming.

Sky News and Sky1 also provide a variant of their stations for the Republic of Ireland, although specific Sky News coverage for the Republic of Ireland is extremely limited, due in part to the channel with Irish content closing on 3 November 2006, and Sky1's variant is purely an advertising opt-out.

United States

In the United States, all broadcast television networks utilize a model wherein individual stations within a media market are affiliated with a specific network, in an agreement similar to a franchise. An affiliation gives the station the privilege to broadcast the network's national programming (which typically covers primetime programming, and in some cases may also include news programming, programs in other dayparts such as daytime and late-night, as well as sports broadcasts), incorporate the network's name and logo into their an on-air brand, and sell blocks of local advertising time during network programs. Most affiliates are owned by third-party broadcasters that are separate from the network's owner (including companies such as Hearst Television, Nexstar Media Group, and Tegna, Inc. among others), but some affiliates may be owned and operated by the network's parent company (colloquially known as being an "O&O"). This is more common in larger, major metropolitan markets (such as Los Angeles and New York City), where O&Os typically act as flagship stations of their respective network. The number of network-owned stations is typically small, as individual broadcasters are subject to a market cap limit to prevent concentration of media ownership. Networks typically restrict a media market (as defined by the Nielsen Company) to one affiliate each, but there have been exceptions in certain markets due to historical precedents, such as ABC affiliates WZZM and WOTV (whose signals do not sufficiently cover the entirety of West Michigan due to differing tower locations in comparison to other stations in the market).

Besides considerations for time zones, especially in regards to live programs and how they may impact scheduling of other programming, the schedule of network programming is generally consistent between affiliates. Networked programming contains national continuity and advertising, but affiliates are given time for local continuity and advertising. Programming outside of the network schedule is generally the responsibility of the individual station, and typically consists of local newscasts, syndicated programming acquired by the station, other locally produced programs. Off-peak hours (such as late-night hours) are often programmed with infomercials and other forms of brokered programming, as the majority of U.S. stations no longer sign off at the end of their broadcast day. Stations may, from time to time, preempt network programs for specials of local interest (such as coverage of local celebrations and sporting events), although affiliation contracts may contain restrictions on often this can be done. Due to these practices, the major networks do not have a full, centralized schedule, and the types of programming carried by each affiliate of a network can vary considerably. Due to differing market dynamics, Spanish-language networks such as Telemundo and Univision do have a centralized network schedule with opt-out periods for local newscasts.

PBS, the country's main public television network, is composed similarly of "member stations" operated by non-profit entities, such as media foundations and educational institutions. PBS provides a common schedule of networked primetime programming, but member stations are generally given flexibility in how programming is scheduled outside of primetime, which may consist of other PBS programs (such as the network's PBS Kids lineup) and local productions. Member stations may contribute to programs being produced for the network schedule. PBS does not have any owned-and-operated stations, but has several de facto flagships in major markets which are well known for their involvement in networked programming, such as WNET-TV in New York, WGBH-TV in Boston, and WETA-TV in Washington (which produces PBS's national news programs). Unlike the other networks, which rigidly grant exclusivity within a market, some markets may contain multiple PBS stations; the network coordinates a "Program Differentiation Plan" that differentiates the programming between the primary and secondary member stations.

A more straightforward equivalent to a regional variation in North American broadcasting is a semi-satellite—a co-owned re-broadcaster of a television station that is used to extend its range into a different portion of a market (typically if the main signal is not strong enough to reach it), or a different one entirely, but has more variation in programming than a straight rebroadcaster. Semi-satellites typically share the majority of their programming with a parent station (which may vary to account for syndication rights), but may carry a different on-air name, advertising tailored to the region, and opt-out of the parent station's news programs (either partially or entirely) to present a local newscast specific to their region. An example is WDAY-TV in Fargo, North Dakota, which serves Grand Forks with a separate station, WDAZ-TV. WDAZ has a separate news department which produces local evening and late-night newscasts from Grand Forks, but otherwise contributes reporting to regional newscasts produced from Fargo by WDAY.^[1][2]

In some regions, a larger-scale group of co-owned stations may be linked together as a regional network in a similar fashion—such as the Montana Television Network (a group of CBS affiliates across Montana), NBC North Dakota, Forum Communications' KBMY in Bismarck and KMCY in Minot (which are largely fed from WDAY), as well as various groups of PBS members.

ITV

Until 2002, ITV's continuity was largely separate in each region of the country, even when announcing broadcasts that were the same throughout the country. The logo of the regional contractor would typically be displayed instead of, or far more prominently than, any 'ITV' logo, before programmes and during trailers. Separate announcers would also be used.

With the consolidation of many ITV companies throughout the 1990s, continuity was often shared between regions as a cost-cutting measure, with the Granada plc companies sharing a continuity announcer (but with different logos) from the late 1990s until all ITV Plc regions shared the same continuity from 2002 onwards. UTV and STV still continue with separate continuity most of the time, with Channel Television occasionally showing its own pre-recorded continuity in place of the network ITV branded material.

BBC

The BBC also provided regional continuity during the 1970s, often also for nationally networked programming, but this ended in around 1980. Regional continuity is used between 6 am and 2 am provided by BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and BBC Northern Ireland for BBC One and BBC Two, outside these times the channels use the main BBC One and BBC Two continuity. In England, BBC One continuity is simply referred to as BBC One on air at all times except preceding local programming where all regions except BBC London use pre-recorded announcements. BBC London uses the main BBC announcers for its local programmes. BBC Two is a single channel in England so uses national continuity at all times.

BBC Four, CBBC Channel, CBeebies, BBC News Channel and BBC Parliament have no regional variations and therefore no regional continuity.

Technical description

An opt-out is the process of a regional entity inserting its output into a tributary of an otherwise complete national broadcast distribution feed, creating a local variation in output.

Being a non-commercial broadcaster, the BBC has no need to play out local commercial spots, thus a regional node will typically only output programme material during the local news. Rather than each region having to control or monitor output that is being relayed from a central source, the region will step back from the network, allowing the central source to directly feed its transmitters. The central source is a national feed, which is complete in itself including all continuity, timing, announcement and programme elements. The region interposes to broadcast its element locally, in place of a programme in the national feed, by bringing itself into the network (cold-opt) in preparation for the start of the regional element (warm-opt). ^[3]

Within BBC English Regions, the opt-out usually takes place within equipment located within the region's own central technical area. This is not always the case though; for instance the output from BBC Hull, which feeds the Belmont transmitter, is actually switched at BBC Leeds, and the Channel Islands opt-out occurs at Plymouth of the UK mainland, although the programme content comes from both Plymouth and Jersey. Considerable variation can exist between the signal paths for digital (DTT and DSat) and analogue transmissions, leading to great complexity in the opt-out logic.

Commercial broadcasters such as ITV, Channel 4 (with S4C) and Channel 5 distribute their programmes to regions complete with local advertising and regional programme variations. Regional programmes, although they may be produced in a particular region, are sent to a centralised play-out facility as contributions for insertion into the regional broadcast feed. BBC programmes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are broadcast from their own play-out facilities in Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast, although receiving live and recorded programmes from London they continuously monitor their own output. Thus they do not actually "opt out".