This is an interesting-sounding analysis, but unfortunately your statement about the "premise" of affiliation is 100% backwards. In major markets, historically

This is an interesting-sounding analysis, but unfortunately your statement about the "premise" of affiliation is 100% backwards. In major markets, historically it has been the networks who pay the stations an affiliation fee, not vice versa. The stations have something valuable (a broadcast license) and the networks want access to it so they can air their national ads. Yes, of course the station also gets something valuable out of the affiliation. On balance, however, the money has tended to flow from network to station, not vice versa. For example, here in Boston, NBC pays Channel 7 an affiliation fee of $15 million a year (or did in 2000 and years afterward; I haven't kept up with it more recently). See http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-805-ethics-and-the-law-on-the-electronic-frontier-fall-2005/projects/newselectionbias.pdf http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput..., section 2.2 (page 4).