Editing Television broadcaster (section)

===Regulation===
FCC regulations in the United States restricted the [[concentration of media ownership|number of television stations that could be owned by any one network, company or individual]]. This led to a system where most local television stations were independently owned, but received programming from the network through a [[franchising]] contract, except in a few major cities that had [[owned-and-operated station]]s (O&O) of a network and independent stations. In the early days of television, when there were often only one or two stations broadcasting in a given market, the stations were usually affiliated with multiple networks and were able to choose which programs would air. Eventually, as more stations were licensed, it became common for each station to be exclusively affiliated with only one network and carry all of the "prime-time" programs that the network offered. Local stations occasionally break from regularly scheduled network programming however, especially when a [[breaking news]] or [[severe weather]] situation occurs in the viewing area. Moreover, when stations return to network programming from [[commercial break]]s, station identifications are displayed in the first few seconds before switching to the network's logo.