In the broadcasting industry (especially in North America), a network affiliate (or affiliated station) is a local broadcaster which carries some or all of the television program or radio program line-up of a television or radio network, but is owned by a company other than the owner of the network. This distinguishes such a television station or radio station from an owned-and-operated station (O&O), which is owned by its parent network.
Notwithstanding this distinction, it is common in informal speech (even for networks or O&Os themselves) to refer to any station, O&O or otherwise, that carries a particular network's programming as an affiliate, or to refer to the status of carrying such programming in a given market as "affiliation".
In the United States, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations limit the number of network-owned stations as a percentage of total market size. As such, networks tend to have O&Os only in the largest media markets (e.g. New York City and Los Angeles), and rely on affiliates to carry their programming in other markets. However, even the largest markets may have network affiliates in lieu of O&Os. For instance, Tribune Broadcasting's WPIX serves as the New York City affiliate for the CW Television Network, which does not have an O&O in that market. On the other hand, several other TV stations in the same market — WABC (ABC), WCBS (CBS), WNBC (NBC), WNJU (Telemundo), WNYW (Fox), WWOR-TV (MyNetworkTV), WPXN (ION), WXTV (Univision) and WFUT (TeleFutura) — are O&Os.
Plot
In 1939, WBN, a fourth radio network, is about to take to America's airwaves. As if the confusion of the premiere night wasn't enough, Penny Henderson, the owner's secretary, must deal with an unhappy sponsor, an overbearing boss and a soon-to-be ex-husband who desperately wants her back. As the broadcast begins, a mysterious voice breaks the broadcast and suddenly members of the cast turn up dead. It's up to her husband Roger, to find out whodunit as the police chase him through the halls of WBN.
Keywords: 1930s, accordion, actor, actress, announcer, applause, audience, backstage, baseball-bat, box-office-flop
At station WBN, the hits just keep on coming.
Penny Henderson: I told Dexter not to smoke. If you ask me, they oughta put warning labels on those packages.
Claudette: Caught me at a bad time, kid. I'm in.::Roger: So am I.::Claudette: Nobody enters my dressing room uninvited! What the hell do you think that star means?::Roger: You're Jewish?
Claudette: I'm Claudette Katzenback, the va-va-va-voom girl with the va-va-va-voom voice. Who the hell are you?::Lieutenant Cross: I'm Lt. Cross, the Chicago cop with the sh-sh-short temper.
Katzenback: Now you listen to me, Junior, don't you think that I don't know what's going on, because I do know, and now you know that I know.::Walt Whalen Junior: Listen, I don't know what you know that I know, but I do know that you don't know what you think you know.::Katzenback: Oh no?::Walt Whalen Junior: No.
Milt Lackey: Retire? Who'd support my mother and father?
[last lines]::Announcer: And that's it from WBN in Chicago. If it wasn't clear before, it's certainly clear now; There'll never be anything quite like... radio.
Milt Lackey: [pointing to his outstretched finger] That's it. That's the only thing I got that still works.
Milt Lackey: In what other business can a man my age walk out on stage, smoke a cigar, tell a few jokes, sing a few songs, and use the same color lipstick that Dolores del Rio uses?
Zoltan: [stabbing a knife into a watermelon] The knife in the back. [Grabs a mallet] The sound of the human head smashing. [Smashes the watermelon and pauses] Hmmm... something is not quite right.::Morgana: Try honeydew.::Zoltan: Good idea!
Wild Writer: What if the wife smashes him over the head, with a frying pan, and then chops him up into hundreds of tiny pieces with her shiny new carving knife?::Father Writer: No, I don't think so.::Son Writer: It's a family show!::Wild Writer: Okay, then what if she does it to the whole family?