Sister station

Inbroadcasting,sister stationsorsister channelsareradioortelevision stationsoperated by the same company, either bydirect ownershipor through amanagement agreement.

Radio sister stations will often have differentformats,and sometimes one station is on theAM bandwhile another is on theFM band.Conversely, several types of sister-station relationships exist in television; stations in the same city will usually beaffiliatedwith differenttelevision networks(often one with a major network and the other with a secondary network), and may occasionally shifttelevision programsbetween each other when local events require one station to interrupt its network feed.

Sister stations in separate (but often nearby) cities owned by the same company may or may not share a network affiliation. For example,WNYWandWWOR-TV,inNew York CityandSecaucus, New Jersey,are both owned byFox Corporation.WNYW is a Foxowned-and-operated station;WWOR-TV is a MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station.WPSGin Philadelphia andKBCWin San Francisco were the flagship stations ofThe CWuntil 2022 and are owned byCBS Television Stations.In addition, stations in different cities affiliated with the same network, but not sharing an ownership tie, may refer to each other informally as sister stations.

Sister networksorsister channels,in many cases, are cable or satellite channels which are launched to either broadcast series which either premiered on the main network but has been moved out of the higher-priority schedule (such asTV LandorBoomerang), fulfill a specific niche of content which would not be fulfilled on the main network (such as theNick Jr. ChannelorNicktoons) or broadcast to a wider audience than the main network (such asCNN InternationalorAl Jazeera English). However, in other cases, these cable or satellite channels may only share common ownership.

The establishment and proliferation of sister networks on cable, satellite and internet providers has become easier and more commercially profitable over the history of such media venues.

See also

• Concentration of media ownership
• Parent company