re: On this day in 1967, 78 million people tuned in to watch the finale of The Fugitive

quote:

---

All are still in business today; channel 39 is the only one that's changed network affiliations. Carries the CW today.

---

There used to be a lot more independent stations around the country. Then Fox came around 87 and WB and UPN (which both later merged to form CW) came around in 95 and by then, I don’t think there were many independent stations left.

Edit: Actually, for a while after it launched, most of the formerly independent Fox affiliates still ran as semi-independent entities because Fox only ran content on a few days of the week. The rest of the affiliates’ programming schedule was first-run syndication stuff until Fox became a full 7-day-a-week network.