Television in the United States Gray Television, whose 131 stations cover mostly smaller metropolitan areas reaching only 10% of the population. The five major U.S. broadcast television networks are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), CBS (formerly known as the Columbia Broadcasting System), the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox) and the CW Television Network. The first and elder three (which are colloquially known as the "Big Three") began as radio networks: NBC and CBS respectively began operations in 1924 and 1927, while ABC was spun off from NBC to Edward J. Noble in 1943 as the Blue Network during FCC inquiries over
British Broadcasting Company to the original shareholders of the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. was Burndept Limited. It represented the interests of over twenty small electrical manufacturers in the UK. The British Broadcasting Company did not sell air time for commercials but its licence did allow for it to carry sponsored programming, and eight such sponsored broadcasts were aired in 1925. However, the main source of its income was from the sale of radio receiving sets and transmitters manufactured by its shareholding member companies as well as from a portion of the government (GPO) licence fee that had to be purchased by BBC listeners.