Owned-and-operated Station - Branding

Branding

A network’s O&Os often share similar branding elements among themselves, reinforcing their common identity as stations owned by the same network. This kind of sharing may also present some savings to the parent network (i.e. the owner), as its O&Os can use the same graphics and music rather than to each commission its own branding package. Examples include the circle 7 logo (originally designed in the early 1960s for ABC’s aforementioned O&Os, all of which broadcast on channel 7 at the time), the I Love Chicago (Chicago My Home) musical signature for local newscasts (originally used by WBBM-TV, later spread to other CBS O&Os), and the "CBS Mandate" (a set of branding guidelines currently used at several CBS O&Os). Fox also has a set of branding guidelines for both its O&Os and affiliates. Supposedly, NBC and ABC also have branding guidelines for its affiliates, but not as extreme as CBS or Fox.

Networks in Canada took corporate branding to its logical conclusion; references to local call signs and channel numbers have almost completely been eliminated from the O&Os except during station sign-on and sign-off sequences (although some O&Os may occasionally refer to their channel numbers in passing).

Currently, other television station groups (e.g. Hearst Television) also implement common branding packages among its stations (even when affiliated with different networks). Some of the branding elements originally found only at the O&Os are now used by regular affiliates as well (e.g. the aforementioned circle 7 logo, and use of the I Love Chicago theme music by some CBS affiliates that are not O&Os, such as KPHO-TV). Nonetheless, such practices and elements can still be traced back to the O&Os, which represented the earliest television station groups under common ownership, before the emergence and proliferation of nationwide station ownership groups in the subsequent decades.