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Inbroadcasting, aflagship (also known as aflagship station orkey station) is the broadcast station whichoriginates atelevision network, or a particular radio ortelevision program that plays a key role in the branding of and consumer loyalty to a network or station. This includes both directnetwork feeds andbroadcast syndication, but generally notbackhauls. Not all networks or shows have a flagship station, as some originate from a dedicatedradio ortelevision studio.
The term derives from the naval custom where the commanding officer of a group of naval ships wouldfly a distinguishing flag. In common parlance, "flagship" is now used to mean the most important or leading member of a group, hence its various uses in broadcasting. The termflagship station is primarily used in TV and radio in theUnited States,Canada, and thePhilippines (though it is seldomly used), while the termkey station (キー局,kī kyoku) is primarily used inTV in Japan (and formerly in the United States).
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Aflagship radio station is the principal station from which aradio network's programs are fed toaffiliates.
In the United States, traditionalradio networks currently operate withoutflagship stations as defined in this article. Network operations and those of the localowned-and-operated or affiliated stations in the same city are now separate and may come under different corporate entities.
In the U.S.,CBS News Radio produces programming for distribution by Skyview Networks, but local stationsWCBS andWINS in New York City andKNX (and formerlyKFWB) in Los Angeles are operated separately from the network radio news operation, under a separate company with common shareholders,Audacy, Inc.iHeartMedia follows a similar model: flagship stationsWOR in New York City (which it acquired in 2012) andKFI in Los Angeles are both operated mostly separately from its syndication wing,Premiere Networks (Premiere does produce some limited programming, includingThe Jesus Christ Show,The Tech Guy andHandel on the Law, through KFI). Premiere'sThe Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show usesWLAC as a flagship station, as Clay Travis is based in Nashville.
WWRL in New York City was an affiliate of the now-defunctAir America Radio and carries some of its programs (along with those from other distributors) but is separately owned and operated and does not produce any programs for the network. Originally, Air America Radio leasedWLIB (also in New York City) as its flagship station; the station was completely automated and produced no local programming. The network would later leaseWZAA in Washington, D.C., as its lone self-operated station.
Fox Sports Radio's flagship station isKLAC in Los Angeles, with which it merged operations in 2009.SB Nation Radio is flagshipped atKGOW in Houston; one of its predecessors,Sporting News Radio, was previously flagshipped at WIDB (nowWNTD) in Chicago.CBS Sports Radio is nominally flagshipped atWFAN (although that station does not produce programming for the network).ESPN Radio has no true flagship station, as it operates out of ESPN headquarters inBristol, Connecticut;Windsor Locks-licensedWUCS (owned by iHeartMedia) serves as itsde facto flagship, serving ESPN's home market ofHartford.
Nash FM, a country music network, is nominally flagshipped atWKDF inNashville, Tennessee; its classic-leaning counterpart Nash Icon is flagshipped atWSM-FM in the same city.MeTV FM, a classicoldies/soft rock network, is flagshipped atWRME-LD inChicago, the home base of its owner, television broadcasterWeigel Broadcasting. TheSatellite Music Network networks were flagshipped at a cluster of stations in theDallas-Fort Worth Metroplex during their existence;KMEO, for example, served as the flagship forUnforgettable Favorites. CloudCast is flagshipped atKZOY inSioux Falls, South Dakota, with much of its programming voicetracked fromWGWE inLittle Valley, New York.
Former flagship stations for now-defunct networks in American radio's "Big Four" era of the 1940s–1980s were:
In Canada, currentCBC/Radio-Canada flagships areCBLA-FM (99.1) inToronto, which broadcasts in English, andCBF-FM (95.1) inMontréal, which broadcasts in French. Both are former AMclear channel operations which have moved to FM.
Former flagship stations for now-defunct networks were:
While CJBC remains on-air on its original frequency, it is now an owned-and-operated station of the French-language Radio-Canada network.
TheCKO network's Toronto frequency was re-issued toCBL (as CBLA-FM 99.1) but the namesakeCKO (AM) flagship in Montréal is silent; the frequency remains vacant.
Forsyndicated radio programs, it refers to the originating station from which a program is fed by satellite or other means to stations nationwide, although the show may also originate elsewhere or from a home studio via anISDN line. Some programs are simulcast on television, while others are simulcasted onXM Satellite Radio and / orSirius Satellite Radio. Flagship stations of prominent syndicated radio programs currently include:
In sports broadcasting, the flagship radio station is the sports team's primary station in the team's home market that produces game broadcasts and feeds them to affiliates. For example,WJZ-FM is the radio flagship station of theBaltimore Orioles baseball team, which feeds Orioles' games to 20 stations inMaryland and adjacent states.[needs update]
Aflagship television station is the principal privately ownedtelevision station of atelevision network in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Australia and the Philippines.[1]
In the late 1920s, network owned-and-operated stations (or "O&O") for radio in New York City began producing live entertainment and news programs, fed by telephone lines to affiliates. These eventually were dubbed flagship stations.
When television networks were formed in the United States in the late 1940s and grew during the early 1950s, network-owned stations in New York City became the production centers for programs originating on the East Coast, feeding affiliates ofABC,CBS, andNBC in the eastern three-fourths of the country. Stations in Los Angeles similarly started producing programs on the West Coast, feeding affiliates in thePacific Time Zone,Alaska andHawaii. Consequently, the networks' New York City stations became known as the "East Coast flagships" of their respective networks and the networks' Los Angeles stations became known as the "West Coast flagships".
However, before the 1950s, San Francisco was also considered a West Coast flagship market for the networks, with much of the CBS and NBC network's West Coast news programming originating from that city. This is seen the calls of CBS'sKCBS (AM) being based in their original city of San Francisco instead of Los Angeles (the use of KCBS-TV in Los Angeles only dates back to 1984), whileKNBR (which was subsequently sold to another party by NBC in 1987) was formerly known as KNBC before the network moved those calls toKRCA-TV in Los Angeles in 1962.
ABC, CBS and NBC are headquartered in New York City, which is the largest television market in the U.S., so their respective radio and television stations in that market are considered the overall network flagship stations. As programming schedules increased and modern technology improved transmission to affiliates, the networks set up operations centers in New York City (for the East Coast feed) and Los Angeles (for the West Coast feed). Los Angeles is the second largest television market in the U.S., and traditional home to themotion picture industry and its pool of popular talent, one of the reasons the radio networks set up operations there in the 1930s and 1940s (just as the medium of television was starting to take off).
This arrangement is reversed for theFox Broadcasting Company. When Fox was launched in 1986, itsnetwork operations center was (and still is) based in Los Angeles. However, Fox's parent company,Fox Corporation (which spun off its broadcasting properties in July 2013 into the separate21st Century Fox, then that company spun off many of its film and cable assetsto Disney in 2019), is headquartered in New York City, along with itsnews division. Fox-ownedWNYW in New York City is considered the network's overall flagship, while sister stationKTTV in Los Angeles is considered a second flagship station.
In 2006, whenThe WB andUPN merged to formThe CW, Philadelphia stationWPSG and San Francisco stationKBCW (now KPYX) were designated as the network'sde facto East Coast and West Coast flagships, respectively, due to CBS owning half of The CW's controlling shares at the time. New York's affiliateWPIX and Los Angeles' affiliateKTLA did not have such status since the network's inception, asTribune Media (who had a minority stake in The WB) opted not to have any controlling interest with The CW, by selling off its share of The WB; instead, to secure the affiliation across most of the former WB affiliates they owned at the time.Nexstar Media Group then bought Tribune in 2019; however, it had to sell off WPIX to theE. W. Scripps Company to prevent breaching the required market ownership cap set by the FCC for each broadcaster. Two years after WPIX returned to Nexstar control through partner companyMission Broadcasting, the Irving, Texas-based media firm announced that it would buy 75% of CW's shares in August 2022. With the purchase completion announced on October 3, 2022, both WPIX and KTLA formally became flagship stations for the first time. However, as part of the Nexstar agreement, Paramount was given a right with the transaction to disaffiliate all eight of their CW affiliates, which was exercised on May 5, 2023.[2] By the time of the disaffiliations on September 1, Nexstarrepatriated The CW affiliations onto their MyNetworkTV affiliates inPhiladelphia,San Francisco andTampa–St. Petersburg,[3] announced the purchase of Detroit stationWADL through affiliate company Mission Broadcasting,[4] and signed long-term agreements withHearst Television,[5]Gray Television[6]Sinclair Broadcast Group,[7] and theE. W. Scripps Company.[8]
| Network | East Coast flagship (New York)1 | West Coast flagship (Los Angeles)1 |
|---|---|---|
| NBC | WNBC 4 WCAU 10 (Philadelphia)1 | KNBC 4 |
| CBS | WCBS-TV 2 | KCBS-TV 2 |
| ABC | WABC-TV 7 | KABC-TV 7 |
| Fox | WNYW 5 | KTTV 11 |
| The CW | WPIX 11 | KTLA 5 |
| MyNetworkTV | WWOR-TV 9 | KCOP-TV 13 |
| PBS2 | WNET 13/WLIW 21 WGBH 2/WGBX 44 (Boston) WETA 26 (Washington D.C.) WHYY 12 (Philadelphia) WQED 13 (Pittsburgh) | KOCE 50/KCET 28/KLCS 58 KQED 9/KQET 25/KQEH 54 (San Francisco) |
| Ion Television | WPXN-TV 31 WPXM-TV 35 (Miami) | KPXN-TV 30 |
| Telemundo | WNJU 47 WSCV 51 (Miami)1 | KVEA 52 KSTS 48 (San Francisco) |
| Estrella TV | WASA-LD 24 WGEN-TV (Miami)1 | KRCA 62 |
| Univision | WXTV-DT 41 WLTV-DT 23 (Miami)1 | KMEX-DT 34 |
| UniMás | WFUT-DT 68 WAMI-DT 69 (Miami)1 | KFTR-DT 46 |
| CTN | WCLF 22 (Tampa) | none |
| Antenna TV Rewind TV | WGN-TV 9 (Chicago) WPIX 11 (New York) | KTLA 5 (Los Angeles) |
| MeTV MeTV Plus Heroes & Icons Story Television Catchy Comedy Movies! Start TV | WJLP 33 (MeTV) WZME 43 (MeTV Plus) WBBM-TV 2 (Start TV; Chicago) WFLD 32 (Movies!; Chicago) WCIU-TV 26 (Chicago)1 | KAZA-TV 54 (MeTV) KHTV-CD 6 (MeTV Plus) KSFV-CD 27 (Satellite ofKVME-TV 20) (Heroes & Icons) KPOM-CD 14 (Catchy Comedy) KTLN-TV 68 (Heroes & Icons; San Francisco) KAXT-CD 1 (Catchy Comedy; San Francisco) |
| True Crime Network Quest | WXIA-TV 11 (Atlanta)1 | none |
| Comet Charge! Roar The Nest | WBFF 45 (Charge!; Baltimore)1 WNUV 54 (Comet/The Nest; Baltimore) WUTB 24 (Roar; Baltimore) | none |
| Circle | WSMV-TV 4 (Nashville)1 | none |
| Retro TV Heartland Rev'n | WOOT-LD 6 (Chattanooga)1 | none |
| Almavision | WEYS-LD 54 (Miami, Florida) | KTAV-LD 35 |
| CTVN | WPCB-TV 40 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) | none |
| Daystar | KDTN 2 (Denton/Dallas, Texas) | none |
| Family | WHME-TV 46 (South Bend, Indiana) | none |
| 3ABN | W15BU-D 15 (Johnston City, Illinois) | none |
| TCT | WTCT 27 (Marion, Illinois) WACP 4 (Philadelphia) | KDOC-TV 56 (Los Angeles) KTNC-TV 42 (San Francisco) |
| TBN | WTBY-TV 54 KDTX-TV 58 (Dallas)1 | KTBN-TV 40 |
1 East Coast flagships are normally in the New York City designated market area (DMA), while the West Coast flagships are located in the Los Angeles area. WCAU in Philadelphia is listed for NBC because its parent companyComcast is headquartered here.
Meanwhile,Miami stations are also listed for Univision, Telemundo and UniMás (formerly TeleFutura) due to their operations being major production bases for those networks. The Miami area station for Ion Television is also listed due to theirparent company being based out ofWest Palm Beach; however none of the Ion stations listed originate programming for the national Ion network (whose only original programming is theWNBA games in the summer as the network's schedule is completelyautomated). Networks designated fordigital subchannels are usually flagshipped at local stations in the home cities of their corporate headquarters. MeTV, MeTV Plus, Catchy Comedy, and Heroes & Icons are owned byWeigel Broadcasting inChicago; Weigel-owned WCIU carries each full network feed as a digital subchannel, while KAZA-TV alongside KHTV-CD, KPOM-CD, and KSFV-CD in Los Angeles carries MeTV, MeTV Plus, Catchy Comedy, Story Television, and Heroes & Icons, while WJLP and WZME in New York City carry MeTV and MeTV Plus, with KAXT-CD and KTLN-TV in San Francisco carries Catchy Comedy and Heroes & Icons. Heartland, Retro TV and Rev'n are all based inChattanooga, Tennessee, the home base of WOOT-LD and common ownerGet After It Media. NEWSnet is based inCadillac, Michigan. True Crime Network and Quest are all based inAtlanta, Georgia. Comet, Charge!, Roar, and The Nest are all based inBaltimore, Maryland. Circle is based inNashville, Tennessee. The Dallas station for TBN is listed as the network is based inFort Worth.
2 While the Virginia-basedPublic Broadcasting Service in the United States does not have an official "flagship" television station, WNET in the New York City area held an official primary role with PBS predecessor,National Educational Television (NET). There cannot be any owned-and-operated stations within the Public Broadcasting Service; individual PBS stations are typically owned by localnon-profit groups (such asWPBS-TV), universities (such asKPBS) or state-level entities as part of a state network (such asKETA-TV andWGTV). The system itself is owned collectively by the local PBS member stations. A station's importance to the system is built as much or more on the programming it produces for national distribution (a metric which places WNET as a strong third-place contender behind WGBH in Boston andWETA in Washington, D.C.) instead of localmedia market size.[9] The jointly owned KCET and KOCE are the primary and secondary PBS stations in the Los Angeles market respectively, while KLCS is a tertiary PBS station.
In sports broadcasting, the flagship television station is the sports team's primary station in the team's home market that producesNFL preseason telecasts, along with in-season surrounding programming such as team, coach's, and pre-game/post-game shows and feeds them to affiliates. For example,WJBK inDetroit is the flagship station of theDetroit Lions Television Network, which feeds Detroit Lions pre-season football games to six stations in Michigan. However, the "sports flagship television station" is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, with the growing popularity of cable- and satellite-exclusiveregional sports networks such asFox Sports Networks andNBC Sports Regional Networks, which hold exclusive broadcast rights to several teams in their market forMajor League Baseball, theNational Hockey League and theNational Basketball Association. This trend is reversing in the 2020s.KJZZ (Utah Jazz) andKTVK (Phoenix Suns) are flagship stations in the NBA, as both teams have contracts with station groups (Sinclair in Utah and Gray in Phoenix). In Major League Baseball,WPCH (Atlanta Braves) will be the flagship station for a 15-game package in their viewing region. In the National Hockey League, the Florida Panthers haveWSFL as their flagship.
TheNational Football League has a different structure, as all games require over-the-air broadcast and the league and teams are generally loath to use only a local cable broadcaster to distribute preseason and team programming. Ananti-siphoning policy is also used by the league in order for local stations to bid for all games not on broadcast television for over-the-air distribution when local teams play. Most of the league's teams partner with a local station or regional network of stations, which distributes team programming and weekly analysis shows featuring a team'shead coach, with those stations allowed to market as a team's 'official station', often tied into preseason and often pay-television games (which are syndicated to primary market stations under the league's anti-siphoning policy). In a lesser arrangement, Major League Baseball teams often name a local broadcast station their official weather forecasting partner and allow them to market as such.
Canadian network flagship locations vary by language. Most English-language networks eastern flagships are located inToronto, French-language eastern flagships are located inMontreal, and West Coast flagships (regardless of language) are located inVancouver.CTV 2, being a secondary system to the mainCTV network, maintains its eastern flagship inBarrie (which is on the northwestern fringe of the Toronto market) and West Coast flagship inVictoria (which is on the southwestern fringe of the Vancouver market). CIII-DT-41 had always been considered the flagship station of Global in Toronto despite being a technicalsatellite station of CIII-DT, which is licensed toParis, Ontario. However, since July 2009, theCRTC has considered CIII-DT-41 "the originating station" of Global Ontario.[10]
The secondary French-language networksTVA andNoovo are not carried terrestrially in Western Canada, although they are usually available onpay television.
| Network/System | Eastern flagship | West Coast flagship |
|---|---|---|
| CBC Television | CBLT-DT (Toronto) | CBUT-DT (Vancouver) |
| Citytv | CITY-DT (Toronto) | CKVU-DT (Vancouver) |
| CTV | CFTO-DT (Toronto) | CIVT-DT (Vancouver) |
| CTV 2 | CKVR-DT (Barrie) | CIVI-DT (Victoria) |
| Global | CIII-DT (Toronto) | CHAN-DT (Vancouver) |
| Ici Radio-Canada Télé | CBFT-DT (Montreal) | CBUFT-DT (Vancouver) |
| Omni Television | CFMT-DT/CJMT-DT (Toronto) | CHNM-DT (Vancouver) |
Networks/systems with only one flagship station
| Network/System | Flagship |
|---|---|
| APTN | CHTY-TV (Yellowknife) |
| Télé-Québec | CIVM-DT (Montreal) |
| TVA | CFTM-DT (Montreal) |
| TVOntario | CICA-DT (Toronto) |
| Knowledge Network | CKNO-DT (Vancouver) |
| Noovo | CFJP-DT (Montreal) |
| Yes TV | CITS-DT (Hamilton) |
As of 2017, Mexico's national networks hold a nationwidevirtual channel, thus all of the flagship stations mentioned below in most of the country are on the same channel on the rest of the stations in each network with some exceptions along the American, Guatemalan and Belizean border areas.
| Network | Station | Channel |
|---|---|---|
| ABC | ABN/ABV | 2 |
| SBS | SBS | 3 |
| Seven 7TWO | ATN/HSV | 7 72 |
| Nine 9Gem 9Go! 9Life 9Rush | TCN/GTV | 9 |
| 10 10 Comedy 10 Drama | TEN/ATV | 10 11 12 |
 | You can helpexpand this section with text translated fromthe corresponding article in Japanese. (April 2023)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
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| You can helpexpand this section with text translated fromthe corresponding article in Japanese. (April 2023)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
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| You can helpexpand this section with text translated fromthe corresponding article in Japanese. (April 2023)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
Source:[11]
| Network | Key Station (Tokyo) | Sub-key Station (Osaka) | Sub-key Station (Nagoya) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NNN/NNS | JOAX-DTV | JOIX-DTV | JOCH-DTV | 30 |
| ANN | JOEX-DTV | JOAY-DTV | JOLX-DTV | 26 |
| JNN | JORX-DTV | JOOY-DTV | JOGX-DTV | 28 |
| FNN/FNS | JOCX-DTV | JODX-DTV | JOFX-DTV | 28 |
| TXN | JOTX-DTV | JOBH-DTV | JOCI-DTV | 6 |
Notes
1 The total number of stations is including the three stations listed in the table.
2 Among the subkey stations, the four major networks are wide area stations.TXN network member stations (Osaka and Aichi) are prefectural area broadcasts.
3 There are13 independent stations in Japan.
| Network | Flagship Station | City of license | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radio Philippines Network | DZKB-TV (RPTV) | Quezon City | Currently blocktimed byTV5 Network Inc. |
| GMA Network | DZBB-TV | ||
| ZOE Broadcasting Network | DZOE-TV (A2Z) | Pasig City | Currently blocktimed byABS-CBN Corporation. |
| DZOZ-DTV (Light TV) | |||
| IBC | DZTV-TV | Mandaluyong Quezon City | |
| TV5 | DWET-TV | ||
| AMBS (All TV) | DZMV-TV | Frequency formerly assigned by ABS-CBN. | |
| People's Television | DWGT-TV | Quezon City | |
| Net 25 | DZEC-TV | ||
| GTV | DWDB-TV | ||
| One Sports | DWNB-TV | Mandaluyong Quezon City Antipolo,Rizal | leased fromNation Broadcasting Corporation |
| RJTV | DZRJ-DTV | Makati City | |
| UNTV | DWAO-TV | Quezon City | |
| Sonshine | DXAQ-TV | Davao City | |
| DWAQ-TV | Makati1 |
Note
1 Sonshine's main headquarters are in Davao City, but also has a fully owned broadcast building in Metro Manila, thus giving the Manila station equal flagship.
In the United States, the term "flagship station" may also be used in the broadcasting industry to refer to a station which is co-located with the headquarters of its station group and considered the company's most important station (such a station may or may not be affiliated with one of the major networks). For example,WDIV-TV in Detroit, affiliated with NBC, is the flagship station ofGraham Media Group; andWGN-TV in Chicago was the flagship station ofTribune Broadcasting until it was purchased byNexstar Media Group in 2019.
In essence, a flagship can be located in the market where the station's owner is headquartered, or in the largest market where that owner operates. For example,WSB-TV in Atlanta is the flagship ofCox Media Group, because Cox's headquarters is located in a suburb of that city. However, Cox ownsWFXT in Boston, which is larger than Atlanta. The same can be said forTEGNA who lists three of its properties as its flagship stations (WXIA-TV in Atlanta,WUSA in Washington, D.C., andKUSA in Denver)[citation needed], but also ownsWFAA inDallas, which is larger than Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Denver in terms ofMedia market. Likewise, prior to merging with Gannett in 2013, WFAA served as the flagship station forBelo, as its headquarters were located in Dallas.KDKA-TV inPittsburgh served as the flagship station for New York City-basedWestinghouse Broadcasting for decades as its parent company was Pittsburgh-basedWestinghouse Electric Corporation; ironically, KDKA-TVlost its flagship status due to Westinghouse acquiring CBS, as opposed to another company acquiring Westinghouse.
The same also can be said for Nexstar listed two of the stations as flagships, one cited wasWYOU-TV inScranton, whichPerry Sook said it was the flagship[citation needed], the other listed wasKDAF-TV in Dallas, which became its flagship after its acquisition ofTribune Media in 2019, the latter partially is located in a suburb of that city and also owns and operates several stations larger than Dallas, such asWPIX-TV inNew York,KTLA inLos Angeles,WGN-TV inChicago andWPHL-TV inPhiladelphia.[12][13] Shortly after its acquisition ofYoung Broadcasting byMedia General in 2013,WRIC-TV inRichmond become one of the two flagship stations of the Media General group prior to the 2017 acquisition by Nexstar, the other flagship wasWFLA inTampa Bay, which was always the television flagship of the group.[14] The same can even be said forScripps, which listedWCPO-TV inCincinnati as the flagship, but also ownedIon Media, which is several times larger than Cincinnati themselves.[15] Even the same can be said for Sinclair Broadcast Group, which listedWBFF-TV inBaltimore andWJLA-TV inWashington, D.C., listed as the flagship stations of the group.[16]
The term is also used for stations that operate satellite stations in other cities. For example,KSNW inWichita, Kansas is the flagship station of the Kansas State Network, a chain ofNBC affiliates serving western and central Kansas as well as border areas of Nebraska.
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