ABC’s group of 10 television stations continues to enjoy strong audience ratings, with seven properties ranking number one in households in their markets from sign-on to sign-off. Taken together, ABC Owned Television Stations reach 24 percent of the nation’s TV households.

An extensive commitment to local news coverage contributes to the ABC group’s overall success, including the highest ratings in early local news in all top-five Nielsen markets: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Long-standing public affairs broadcasts reflect the diversity within each market. Viewers also rely upon the stations for other important community programming, such as local political debates. In addition, ABC’s owned stations are widely recognized for their outstanding coverage of community celebrations, ranging from WPVI-TV Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and KTRK-TV Houston’s Rodeo Parade to WLS-TV Chicago’s New Year’s Eve Chicago Style.

Most of the ABC stations have long-term contracts with some of the most popular syndicated programming with the most staying power, including Oprah, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. These shows provide successful lead-ins to local news programming and to network primetime fare. The stations also achieve considerable success with series such as Live with Regis and Kelly, produced by WABC-TV in New York and syndicated by Disney’s Buena Vista Television.

ABC stations continue to develop their Internet platforms which, in the aggregate, are now reaching over 10 million unique users per year and feature content including news, sports, weather, financial information, health information and other offerings. ABC stations also are making the transition to digital technology and other cutting-edge developments – dedicated to being in the forefront of service to viewers, while keeping a close eye on cost efficiency.