Editing American Broadcasting Company (section)

==Stations==
{{Main|List of ABC television affiliates (by U.S. state)|List of ABC television affiliates (table)|ABC Owned Television Stations}}

<!--- Please update the station count in the below paragraph whenever the accompanying list referenced is updated. ---><!--Only do so with reliable sources and when important to the overall subject, given that there are over 200 stations. -->
Since its inception, ABC has had over 300 television stations that have carried programming from the network at various times throughout its history, including its first two owned-and-operated and affiliated stations, founding O&O [[WABC-TV]] and inaugural affiliate [[WPVI-TV]]. {{As of|2020}}, ABC has eight owned-and-operated stations, and current and pending affiliation agreements with 236 additional television stations encompassing 50 states, the District of Columbia, four U.S. possessions, Bermuda, and [[Saba (island)|Saba]].<ref name=re>{{cite web|title=Stations for Network – ABC|url=http://www.rabbitears.info/search.php?request=network_search&network=ABC|work=RabbitEars.info|access-date=October 30, 2019}}</ref><ref name="StationIndex">{{cite web|title=Network Profile: ABC|url=http://www.stationindex.com/tv/by-net/abc|publisher=Station Index}}</ref> This makes ABC the largest U.S. broadcast television network by the total number of affiliates. The network has an estimated national reach of 97.72% of all households in the United States (or 305,347,338 Americans with at least one television set).

Currently, [[New Jersey]], [[Rhode Island]], and [[Delaware]] are the only U.S. states where ABC does not have a locally licensed affiliate (New Jersey is served by New York City O&O WABC-TV in the north half of the state and Philadelphia O&O WPVI-TV in the south,<ref>[https://tbh.lerctr.org/~ekb/TVMarkets/Maps/new_jersey.gif]</ref> Rhode Island is served by [[New Bedford, Massachusetts]]-licensed [[WLNE-TV|WLNE]], though outside of the transmitter, all other operations for the station are based in [[Providence, Rhode Island|Providence]],<ref>[https://tbh.lerctr.org/~ekb/TVMarkets/Maps/rhode_island.gif]</ref> and Delaware is served by WPVI in the northern two thirds and [[Salisbury, Maryland]], affiliate [[WMDT]] in the southern third of the state).<ref>[https://tbh.lerctr.org/~ekb/TVMarkets/Maps/delaware.gif]</ref> ABC maintains affiliations with low-power stations (broadcasting either in analog or digital) in a few markets, such as [[Birmingham, Alabama]] ([[WBMA-LD]]), [[Lima, Ohio]] ([[WPNM-LD]]) and [[South Bend, Indiana]] ([[WBND-LD]]). In some markets, including the former two mentioned, these stations also maintain digital simulcasts on a subchannel of a co-owned/co-managed full-power television station.

The network has the unusual distinction of having separately owned-and-operated affiliates which serve the same market in [[Tampa, Florida]] ([[WFTS-TV]] and [[WWSB]]), [[Boston|Boston, Massachusetts]] ([[WCVB-TV]] and [[WMUR-TV]]), [[Lincoln, Nebraska]] ([[KLKN-TV|KLKN]] and [[KHGI-TV]]), and [[Grand Rapids, Michigan]] ([[WZZM]] and [[WOTV]]), with an analogous situation arising in [[Kansas City, Missouri]] ([[KMBC-TV]] and [[KQTV]]). KQTV is licensed to [[St. Joseph, Missouri|St. Joseph]], which [[Nielsen Holdings|Nielsen]] designates as a separate market from Kansas City, despite a mere {{convert|55|mi|km|adj=on}} distance between the two cities and the Kansas City-based stations (including KMBC) providing better [[broadcast range|city-grade to Grade B]] coverage to the area compared to the signals of the primary ABC affiliates in the other aforementioned dual-affiliate markets. (KQTV was St. Joseph's lone major network affiliate until 2011, when locally based [[News-Press & Gazette Company]] began establishing low-power affiliates of ABC's four English-language competitors and [[Telemundo]] on three low-power stations to end St. Joseph's dependence on Kansas City.) WWSB, KHGI, and WOTV, meanwhile, serve areas that do not receive an adequate signal from their market's primary ABC affiliate. (Of note, ABC initially affiliated with WWSB to cover southern portions of the Tampa–St. Petersburg market—including WWSB's [[city of license]], [[Sarasota, Florida|Sarasota]]—as the transmitters of [[WTSP]], the market's former primary ABC affiliate from 1965 to 1994, and [[Miami]] affiliate [[WPLG]] had been short-spaced to avoid interference between their respective analog-VHF channel 10 signals, WWSB remained an ABC affiliate after its Tampa affiliation moved from WTSP to WFTS in December 1994, even though WFTS's signal reaches Sarasota and some surrounding areas.){{relevance inline|date=May 2020}}{{citation needed|date=May 2020}} WCVB-TV is licensed to Boston while WMUR-TV is licensed to [[Manchester, New Hampshire]] (which is officially part of the Boston market). WCVB is easily receivable in Manchester with a good antenna as well as having its news department that covers [[New Hampshire]]; it is the only station licensed to the state that does such. Both WCVB and WMUR are owned by [[Hearst Television]].

The [[Sinclair Broadcast Group]] is the largest operator of ABC stations by numerical total, owning or providing services to 28 full, primary ABC affiliates and two subchannel-only affiliates. Sinclair owns the largest ABC subchannel affiliate by market size, [[WABM|WABM-DT2]]/[[WTTO|WDBB-DT2]] in the Birmingham market, which serves as repeaters of WBMA-LD (which itself is also simulcast on a subchannel of former WBMA satellite [[WGWW]], owned by Sinclair partner company [[Howard Stirk Holdings]]). The [[E. W. Scripps Company]] is the largest operator of ABC stations in terms of overall market reach, owning 15 ABC-affiliated stations (including affiliates in larger markets such as [[WEWS-TV|Cleveland]], [[KNXV-TV|Phoenix]], [[WXYZ-TV|Detroit]] and [[KMGH-TV|Denver]]), and through its ownership of [[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]] affiliate KNXV, [[Las Vegas]] affiliate [[KTNV-TV]] and [[Tucson, Arizona|Tucson]] affiliate [[KGUN-TV]], it is the only provider of ABC programming for the majority of [[Arizona]] (outside the [[Yuma, Arizona|Yuma]]-[[El Centro, California|El Centro]] market) and [[Southern Nevada]]. Scripps also owns and operates several ABC stations in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, including in Denver, [[KGTV|San Diego]], [[KERO-TV|Bakersfield, California]], and [[KIVI-TV|Boise, Idaho]], and when combined with [[ABC Owned Television Stations|the ABC-owned stations]] in [[KABC-TV|Los Angeles]], [[KFSN-TV|Fresno]], and [[KGO-TV|San Francisco]], the affiliations from the News-Press & Gazette Company in [[KEYT-TV|Santa Barbara]], [[KESQ-TV|Palm Springs]], [[KECY-TV|Yuma-El Centro]], and [[KRDO-TV|Colorado Springs-Pueblo]], and Sinclair's affiliations in [[KOMO-TV|Seattle]] and [[KATU|Portland, Oregon]], these four entities control the access of ABC network programming in most of the Western United States, particularly in terms of audience reach.