TBS (American TV channel)

TBS

Type	Basic cable network
Country	United States
Broadcast area	United States
Headquarters	Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
Programming
Language(s)	English Spanish (with SAP audio track)
Picture format	1080i (HDTV) (downscaled to letterboxed 480i for the SDTV feed)
Ownership
Owner	Warner Bros. Discovery
Parent	Warner Bros. Discovery Networks
Sister channels	List Adult Swim American Heroes Channel Animal Planet Boomerang Cartoon Network Cartoonito Cinemax CNN Cooking Channel The CW Destination America Discovery Channel Discovery Familia Discovery Family Discovery Life Food Network HBO HGTV Investigation Discovery Magnolia Network Oprah Winfrey Network Science Channel TLC TNT Travel Channel TruTV Turner Classic Movies
History
Launched	September 1, 1967; 56 years ago (1967-09-01) (Atlanta television station WJRJ-TV) December 17, 1976; 47 years ago (1976-12-17) (pay TV network) October 1, 2007; 16 years ago (2007-10-01) (basic cable network)
Founder	Ted Turner
Former names	WJRJ-TV (1967–1970) WTCG-TV (1970–1979) SuperStation WTBS (1979–1987) SuperStation TBS (1987–1989) TBS Superstation (1989–1991) TBS (original use, 1991–1996) TBS Superstation (1996–2004)
Links
Website	international.tbs.com
Availability
Streaming media
Service(s)	DirecTV Stream, Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV, YouTube TV

TBS (originally an initialism of Turner Broadcasting System), stylized as tbs, is an American basic cable television network owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery U.S. Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).^[1] It carries a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy, along with some sports events, including Major League Baseball, Stanley Cup playoffs, and the NCAA men's basketball tournament. As of September 2018, TBS was received by approximately 90.391 million households that subscribe to a pay television service throughout the United States.^[2] By June 2023, this number has dropped to 71.3 million households.^[3]

TBS was originally established on December 17, 1976, as the national feed of Turner's Atlanta, Georgia, independent television station, WTCG. The decision to begin offering WTCG via satellite transmission to cable and satellite subscribers throughout the United States expanded the small station into the first nationally distributed "superstation." With the assignment of WTBS as the broadcast station's callsign in 1979, the national feed became known as SuperStation WTBS, and later SuperStation TBS, TBS Superstation, or simply TBS. The channel broadcast a variety of programming during this era, including films, syndicated series, and sports (including Atlanta Braves baseball, basketball games involving the Atlanta Hawks and other NBA teams, and professional wrestling including Georgia Championship Wrestling, Jim Crockett Promotions and later World Championship Wrestling).

WTBS maintained a nearly identical program schedule as the national feed, aside from FCC-mandated public affairs and educational programming that only aired on the local signal. By the early 2000s, TBS had begun to focus more intensively on comedic programming, including sitcoms and other series. On October 1, 2007, TBS was converted by Turner into a conventional basic cable network, at which time it began to be carried within the Atlanta market on area cable providers alongside its existing local carriage on satellite providers DirecTV and Dish Network. The former parent station in Atlanta was concurrently relaunched as WPCH-TV (branded as "Peachtree TV", which Turner sold to the Meredith Corporation in 2017, and later acquired by Gray Television in 2021) and reformatted as a traditional independent station with a separate schedule exclusively catering to the Atlanta market.