Broadcast network
group of radio stations, television stations, or other electronic media outlets, that form an agreement to air, or broadcast, content from a centralized source
A broadcast network (sometimes called a terrestrial network) is a group of radio stations, television stations, or other electronic media outlets, that form an agreement to air, or broadcast, content from a centralized source. For example, ABCTooltip American Broadcasting Company, CBSTooltip CBS and NBCTooltip NBC (U.S.), CBC/Radio-CanadaTooltip Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Canada), the BBC (UK), the ABCTooltip Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia), ARD (Germany), PTVTooltip People's Television Network and IBCTooltip Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation (Philippines), KBSTooltip Korean Broadcasting System (South Korea), and NHK (Japan) are TV networks that provide programming for local terrestrial television station affiliates to air using signals that can be picked up by the home television sets of local viewers. Networks generally, but not always, operate on a national scale; that is, they cover an entire country.
Streaming media, Internet radio, and webcasting are sometimes considered forms of broadcasting despite the lack of terrestrial stations; its practitioners may also be called "broadcasters" or even "broadcast networks".
American networks
AT&T's "WEAF Chain"
Following the introduction of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) developed the first radio network, linking together individual stations with specially prepared long-distance telephone lines in what at the time was called a "chain". The key station was AT&T's WEAF (now WFAN) in New York City. The network featured a variety of regularly scheduled programs which included sponsorships (at the time not called advertising but "toll broadcasting").
From the beginning, AT&T planned to eventually expand nationwide, so that national companies would be able reach large portions of the nation with their brand names and slogans in an efficient manner. At first the network's expansion was slow. In 1924, the Eveready Hour was broadcast over 12 stations, primarily located in the U.S. Northeast.
The public source identifies “Broadcast network” as group of radio stations, television stations, or other electronic media outlets, that form an agreement to air, or broadcast, content from a centralized source. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Broadcast, network and group.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Broadcast network”, the useful work is to connect “group of radio stations, television stations, or other electronic media outlets, that form an agreement to air, or broadcast, content from a centralized source” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q141683. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1924.
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This entry incorporates text from “Broadcast network” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.