Commercial broadcasting in the context of "Radio programming"

Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting.

Community stations serve geographic communities and communities of interest. They broadcast content that is popular and relevant to a local, specific audience but is often overlooked by commercial (or) mass-media broadcasters. Community radio stations are operated, owned, and influenced by the communities they serve. They are generally nonprofit and provide a mechanism for enabling individuals, groups, and communities to tell their own stories, to share experiences and, in a media-rich world, to become creators and contributors of media.

Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio spectrum for non-commercial communication, technical experimentation, self-training, recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communications. In 1927 a radio amateur was defined as "a duly authorized person interested in radioelectric practice with a purely personal aim and without pecuniary interest," meaning without monetary or similar reward. The definition distinguished amateur activity from commercial broadcasting, public safety services, and professional two-way radio uses such as maritime, aviation, and taxi communication.

The amateur radio service (amateur service and amateur-satellite service) is established by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) through its Radio Regulations. National governments set technical and operational rules for transmissions and issue individual station licences with unique call signs. Call signs must be used in transmissions, at least every ten minutes and at the end. Amateur radio operators must hold an amateur radio licence, granted after an examination that tests knowledge of radio theory, electronics, and national regulations.

LBC (originally London Broadcasting Company) is a British phone-in and talk radio station owned and operated by Global and based in its headquarters in London. It was the UK's first licensed commercial radio station, and began to broadcast on Monday 8 October 1973, a week ahead of Capital Radio.

The launch of LBC also saw the beginning of Independent Radio News broadcasting, as LBC provided the service to independent local radio stations nationwide. LBC broadcast only to London until 2006, at which time it became available, via digital radio, in some other parts of the country. It has been available nationwide since 2014, with the letters now standing for Leading Britain's Conversation. LBC has a like-branded sister station, LBC News, dedicated to rolling news, travel and weather.

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network, serving as the flagship property of NBC Entertainment, a division of NBCUniversal, which is a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's two main flagship subsidiaries, alongside Universal Studios. It is the first and oldest major broadcast programming network in the United States.

NBC's headquarters are located in New York City at Rockefeller Center's Comcast Building, the network's longtime home. The network's predecessor parent companies were integral to the center's construction. NBC also notably has offices at the NBC Tower in Chicago, Illinois, and at 10 Universal City Plaza in Los Angeles, California.

From the 1950s to the 1980s, during the network era of American television, there were three commercial broadcast television networks – NBC (the National Broadcasting Company, "the Peacock Network"), CBS (the Columbia Broadcasting System, "the Eye Network"), ABC (the American Broadcasting Company, "the Alphabet Network") – that due to their longevity and ratings success are informally referred to as the "Big Three". The three networks' dominance was interrupted with the launch of Fox (the Fox Broadcasting Company, "the Searchlight Network") in 1986, leading it to join them as one of the expanded "Big Four", while the viewership shares of all the major broadcast networks declined over the following years.

Fox Broadcasting Company, LLC (commonly known as Fox; stylized in all caps) is an American commercial broadcast television network serving as the flagship namesake property of Fox Corporation and operated through Fox Entertainment. Fox is based at Fox Corporation's corporate headquarters at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, and it hosts additional offices at the Fox Network Center in Los Angeles and at the Fox Media Center in Tempe, Arizona. The channel was launched by News Corporation on October 9, 1986 as a competitor to the Big Three television networks, which are the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC).

Fox has gone on to become the most successful attempt at a fourth television network; it was also the highest-rated free-to-air network in the 18–49 demographic from 2004 to 2012 and 2020 to 2021 and was the most-watched American television network in total viewership during the 2007–08 season. It is a member of the North American Broadcasters Association and the National Association of Broadcasters. Unlike other major commercial broadcast networks, Fox does not have a newscast of its own due to its lack of a news division, and instead relies on its own 24-hour news channels, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and Fox Weather to supply news programming for the network.

The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network that serves as the flagship property of the Disney Entertainment division of the Walt Disney Company. ABC is headquartered on Riverside Drive in Burbank, California, directly across the street from Walt Disney Studios and adjacent to the Team Disney – Roy E. Disney Animation Building. The network maintains secondary offices at 7 Hudson Square in New York City's Lower Manhattan neighborhood, which houses its broadcast center and the headquarters of its news division, ABC News. Until early 2025, the network's East Coast operations were based at 77 West 66th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Since 2007, when ABC Radio (also known as Cumulus Media Networks) was sold to Citadel Broadcasting, ABC has reduced its broadcasting operations almost exclusively to television. The youngest of the "Big Three" American television networks, the network is sometimes referred to as the Alphabet Network, as its initialism also represents the first three letters of the English alphabet in order.

ABC launched as a radio network in 1943, as the successor to the NBC Blue Network, which had been purchased by Edward J. Noble. It extended its operations to television in 1948, following in the footsteps of established broadcast networks CBS and NBC, as well as the lesser-known DuMont. In the mid-1950s, ABC merged with United Paramount Theatres (UPT), a chain of movie theaters that formerly operated as a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. Leonard Goldenson, who had been the head of UPT, made the then-new television network profitable by helping to develop and green-light many successful television series. In the 1980s, after purchasing an 80 percent interest in cable sports channel ESPN, the network's corporate parent, American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., merged with Capital Cities Communications, owner of several television and radio stations and print publications, to form Capital Cities/ABC Inc., which in turn merged into Disney in 1996.