What is meant by TV "syndication"?

I don't know of any shows like this now, but back in the 80's and 90's there were a number of television shows that were produced and sold directly into syndication. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Babylon 5, Viper, Mutant X are all examples of such shows.

It's not on any network. The shows are sold directly to stations.

After a TV series has run its course and new shows are no longer being made, and if at least 100 or so episodes of the show exist, then the group of 100 shows is sold as a "package" to individual TV stations, who can run it whenever they want to.

This process of packaging and selling is called "syndication."

There is no exclusivity -- the same package can be sold to stations all over the country and the world.

Sometimes there is exclusivity within a city (like only one station in Dallas is allowed to buy a particular series) to help protect the station's investment.

Recently, some series have NOT waited until they completed their first run to air on other channels. Usually there's a delay of a week or so before the show appears on the second channel, so you can only see the first-run show in one place.

I hope this makes sense.

The mafia runs the station

TV Syndication is the distribution of a TV programs to broadcast TV stations, and cable and sateilite systems. There are 6 minutes of commercial time in each half hour of a TV show, and, in the OLD DAYS, the owner of a TV show would give the TV station 3 minutes of ad time to sell to local advertisers and the owner would sell the remaining 3 minutes to national advertisers. Today that has all changed. TV stations tell the owner of a talk show like the Geraldo Show to buy the Infomercial Time and keep all 6 minutes of ad time and do whatever they want with it. The stations will cut out an additional 3 minutes of ad time anyway from the 30 minutes they sell you and the owner of the tv show can sell the 6 minutes to anyone they want to.
Today, 85% of all non-infomercial TV entertainment shows air in the infomercial time sold by TV stations.

I trade 90-minute feature fims for infomercial time and I can get about $12 million worth of infomercial time for any 90-minute feature film.
Bill SerGio, support@ayzoo.com