On Dec 16, 4:37 pm, Bob in Jersey <[email protected]> wrote:
> Mark J.:
>
> Don't network non-dupe rules extend to PBS?  WHYY (except possibly
> during pledge drives and the "Best of" marathons that follow 'em)
> substantially dupes WLVT...

PBS is technically not a network in the CBS/NBC/ABC/Fox/CW sense.  It
is a programming service cooperative.  That's why it can have more
than one affiliate (uh, "member") in a market.

And this also accounts for the wide variances is programming
scheduling (and why most national TV listings always say "check local
listings for PBS programming").  Outside of the "common carriage"
schedule Sunday through Thursday nights, there is a wide variance in
programming times from station to station--and it's only the primary
stations in multi-station markets (WNET, WGBH, WTTW, KCET, WQED, KQED--
and WHYY, for example) that are bound to common carriage.

The model for PBS was the ITV network in the UK, which until Granada
and Carlton bought up most of the licensees in the late 90s (and then
merged into ITV plc) allowed for a lot of individual programming
decisions by the licensees.  About the only thing they were required
to air were the ITN newscasts, and although most of the time the bulk
of the network was in line for popular shows, there was the
possibility that the only programming some nights that every ITV
station in the UK carried at feed time was "News at Ten."  One
licensee in particular in the 50s and 60s had the reputation of not
clearing anything from the net that smacked of highbrow or upper-
middle-brow programming and replacing it with reruns of American
series like "Highway Patrol."

-- 
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