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ABC owns 10 television stations, all of which achieve strong ratings in their respective markets and, together, reach 23.5% of the nation's television households. ABC's five owned stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco account for about 90% of the group's profits, and each ranks number one in its market from sign-on to sign-off. The ABC-owned stations are the news leaders in their markets, averaging more than 30 hours of regularly scheduled local news every week. This is part of a group-wide commitment to news; to public affairs, including investigative reports, documentaries, debates and town hall meetings; and to community programming.
A brief sampling of special events that exemplify the ABC-owned stations' community spirit includes WPVI-TV Philadelphia's annual Thanksgiving Day Parade, KGO-TV San Francisco's AIDS Walk, WTVD-TV Raleigh-Durham's annual campaign with local fire departments bringing free smoke detectors to needy families, KABC-TV Los Angeles' holiday toy drive which distributes over 500,000 toys to underprivileged children, and WLS-TV Chicago's help in providing 760,000 meals to the needy during the holiday season.
Many of the most popular syndicated shows are under contract at most ABC-owned stations, with Oprah recently having been extended to 2011 and both Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune locked up until 2010. The highly successful Live with Regis and Kelly is produced by WABC-TV in New York and syndicated by Disney's Buena Vista Television.
ABC-owned stations continue to improve program quality and cost efficiency by staying at the forefront of technological progress, with all 10 stations expected to have completed the transition from tape to fully digital news production by the end of 2005. All 10 stations have also added at least two additional digital television signals.
ABC's National Television Sales group, representing the 10 owned stations nationally and regionally, has also successfully established a sales division representing alternative media, including YES Network (carrying the New York Yankees and New Jersey Nets), Altitude Sports and Entertainment Network (Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche), The Orioles TV Network (Baltimore Orioles) and the Times Square Studios JumboTron sign.
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My Wife and Kids will debut in syndication this fall.
Hurricane Ivan coverage on ABC-owned station KTRK-TV in Houston.
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