American broadcast rights

Keep in mind that NBC airs Today for four hours, while CBS and ABC only air CBS This Morning and Good Morning America for 2 hours. I believe part of NBC's deal with affiliates when it was expanding Today was that it would cede two hours of afternoon soap programming in compensation. I think this basically evens out their daily broadcasting hours across the big three. Regarding FOX, I believe it originated as a syndication service and wasn't really a network until the late 1980s. Outside of sports and the Fox News Sunday political chat show, daily Fox programming is really only from 8-10pm.

Fox began as Metromedia, a station group consisting of independent (i.e. unaffiliated) stations. Murdoch bought Metromedia and turned into a fully fledged network known as Fox, even though its programming was very limited at first -- much more so than now.

It may also depend on the price of the show that stations will be able to pay. For example, "Live with Kelly" and "Access Hollywood" are produced by local stations owned by a network (WABC-TV New York for Live and KNBC-TV Los Angeles)

Fox did start as a weekend-only service with syndicated programming filling during the first few years of existence.

I saw the practice like syndication also happens in other countries like Japan anc mainland China.

By the way, being sold to local stations directly, is there a case where an episode of a first-run syndicated show is aired earlier or later than the intended national premiere date set by the distributor?

Bingo. I forgot what NBC got rid of when they added the third hour of Today but for the fourth hour they cancelled the soap Passions. They allow Days of Our Lives to air at different times - but most stations air it at 1PM.

During the daytime hours NBC and ABC airs five hours, CBS airs six and a half and Fox airs none.

The Spanish language networks program most of the day with exceptions for news from 5-7AM, 5-6:30PM and 11-11:30PM. If stations don't offer newscasts at those times the networks offer programs in a What could be considered a sustaining feed.

I notice in the big markets like New York, LA etc the schedules are consistent using ABC as an example Live with Kelly is always at 9am followed by Rachael Ray then The View but in others like Chicago Rachael Ray might air at say 1pm or 2pm.

Ellen and Judge Judy tend to get 3-5pm with a couple of exceptions, I imagine that's the lucrative timeslot for daytime syndication

They likely follow the same schedule because the ABC stations are commonly owned.

Ellen and Judge Judy are placed later in the day part because they are shows that get the most viewers and are likely provide the best lead in for the afternoon local news.

I didn't mean to bump a thread but the preliminary schedule for NBC Boston shows us how much time a local station has to fill through out the day. Programming that the station creates or syndicates is in Bold. NBC Boston is getting most of their syndicated programming (Harry, Access Hollywood, Access Hollywood Live, On The Money and American Ninja Warrior) in house with Rachel Ray being the sole outsider which is distributed by CBS.