TNT (TV channel)

Turner Network Television (TNT) is an American basic cable and satellite television network that is owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner. The channel's programming consists of television series and feature films, with a focus on dramatic programming, along with some professional sporting events (such as NBA basketball games and PGA golf).

As of July 2015, TNT is available to approximately 94.259 million cable, satellite and telco households (81.0% of households with at least one television set) in the United States.

History

Beginnings

Turner Network Television launched at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on October 3, 1988 with The Star Spangled Banner (specifically a tape of the performance that had started sister network CNN 8 years before); its inaugural telecast was the 1939 classic film Gone with the Wind, to which TNT founder Ted Turner had acquired the rights. The movie was chosen as the channel's first program because, it was said that Gone with the Wind was Turner's favorite movie (it would also serve as the first program aired on sister channel Turner Classic Movies, when it debuted in April 1994). Incidentally, Gone With the Wind had its premiere held in Atlanta, Georgia – Turner's hometown and the headquarters of the network's corporate parent, Turner Broadcasting System – and the city served as the setting for the film.

Television network

A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay television providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small number of broadcast networks. Many early television networks (such as the BBC, NBC or CBC) evolved from earlier radio networks.

Overview

In countries where most networks broadcast identical, centrally originated content to all of their stations and where most individual television transmitters therefore operate only as large "repeater stations", the terms "television network", "television channel" (a numeric identifier or radio frequency) and "television station" have become mostly interchangeable in everyday language, with professionals in television-related occupations continuing to make a differentiation between them. Within the industry, a tiering is sometimes created among groups of networks based on whether their programming is simultaneously originated from a central point, and whether the network master control has the technical and administrative capability to take over the programming of their affiliates in real-time when it deems this necessary – the most common example being during national breaking news events.