Prime Time Access Rule Simply begin typing or use the editing
tools above to add to this article. Once you are finished and
click submit, your modifications will be sent to our editors for
review. The Prime Time Access Rule, designed to encourage the
production of local and independent television programming, went
into effect in September 1971. By the mid-1960s the prime
viewing hours had been almost completely locked up by newly
expanded editions of both local and network news and by a
network prime-time schedule that ran from 7:30 to 11:00 pm
Eastern Standard Time. The access rule... history of television
in the U.S. ...the market. The act also allowed networks to own
cable companies, and telephone companies could own cable systems
in their local service regions, neither of which had been
permitted before 1996. The Prime Time Access Rule, which had
limited networks to three hours of programming between 7:00 pm
and 11:00 pm Eastern Standard Time, was also dropped. What made
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