The conceptualization of having production studios be the linkages between regional stations is also interesting, if a bit hard to visualize.
Regional TV would mean lower budgets all around thanks to...whatever the reverse of "scaling" is. Descaling? Lots of regional production facilities, talent spread out inefficiently. It's better for the technicians, actors, and creators- more of a sellers market than a buyers market- but probably worse for quality of product overall.
To illustrate what I mean, I'll give a couple of prototypical examples with two of Argentina's major TV channels - Canal 13, because it was essentially the model all other Argentine TV stations aspired to of replicating the traditional Latin American model within the no-network constraint which biased the TV market towards regional stations, and Telefé, because it's an adaptation of the same model in a more globalized pro-privatization era. When television first started, there was heavy investment coming in from both the US TV networks (so much so that in Buenos Aires there were three new TV stations which were "affiliated" to a network, albeit in the sense of obtaining technology rather than broadcasting American programming) and from the exodus of talent of Cuba following the Cuban Revolution, so in that sense the Cubans attempted to replicate in each of the countries they worked in the same model that worked in Cuba. Among these people was Goar Mestre, a Cuban entrepreneur who had achieved success with his CMQ network before the Revolution and would thus attempt in Argentina in conjunction with CBS and Time-Life. His main base of operations was Río de la Plata TV, LS85, Canal 13, Buenos Aires, which IIRC was modelled on his old CMQ television network - or would be were it not for Argentine law. To get around the restrictions imposed by the government, in conjunction with the formation of Río de la Plata TV he also formed a program distribution arm, Producciónes Argentina de Televisión (PROARTEL). Instead of affiliating regional stations directly to Río de la Plata TV (the normal practice IOTL in the US, but which was verboten in Argentina), PROARTEL would conclude distribution agreements with various TV stations throughout Argentina (a de facto network affiliation of sorts without calling it one, even though it would in a North American context resemble more syndication agreements). Now, theoretically PROARTEL could have functioned as a program cooperative of sorts, kinda sorta to what
@Hoplophile was thinking of for middle-market stations and thus improving the quality of regional television, but that was not the point. The point of a company like PROARTEL is to function as the middleman between Buenos Aires-based TV stations and other TV stations elsewhere in the Republic, creating a one-way flow between the two (and hence the popular impression that "God is everywhere but rules from Buenos Aires"). Also, to further enhance the illusion that these are all still independent TV stations, even the Buenos Aires TV stations themselves were affiliated to the distribution arm, which coincidentally also served as the main production company - in Canal 13's case, the illusion was that it was an independent TV station that just happened to be affiliated to PROARTEL.
Now, in this type of model, there is a danger that one station would have agreements with multiple PROARTEL-like companies, a situation not uncommon in North America at this time and is still found in Mexico among Televisa's regional stations. In these cases, multiple networks (or, in Televisa's case, multiple TV channels based in Mexico City that it owns) would co-exist with local programming. From a North American viewpoint, in smaller markets this would be a good thing since it would provide a variety of programming drawing from the best each network would have to offer. This was also appealing to Argentine regional stations as well, a good portion of which were located in areas where it would have not been cost-effective to have multiple TV stations due to various factors, such as for example a small population base or a local economy that would not be strong enough to sustain a large array of TV stations. From the point of view of Buenos Aires, though, especially once the last military dictatorship fell in 1983, such a situation would be unacceptable (much like how the US TV networks gradually found the situation where local TV stations would regularly pre-empt network programming for local content very annoying and frustrating). During the dictatorship, when all the Buenos Aires TV channels were owned and operated either by the state (Canal 7 and Canal 2/La Plata) or the military (everybody else), it was natural for regional TV stations to mix programming from various sources and much more easier than when the Buenos Aires-based TV stations (Canal 7 excepted) were privately-owned. Starting in the 1980s, though, with the rise of the "Washington Consensus" and the widespread push for deregulation and privatization, Argentina's newly-privatized TV stations wanted greater control over the schedules of their regional stations, even with the constraints such as the ban on network formation. Helping in this matter was the mushrooming growth of cable television in Argentina, which allowed subscribers for the first time to have access to Buenos Aires-based TV channels and thus facilitated an intense porteñification of Argentine TV. Furthermore, with the gradual integration of Latin America as one regional television market and the recognition of Argentina as one of the main program producers (alongside Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela), the Buenos Aires-based TV stations were keen on expanding the market for Argentine programs.
The prototypical example here for the maturation of the Argentine TV model would be Telefé, an outgrowth of the privatization of Canal 11 to
one of Argentina's major publishing houses (though since 2016 Telefé is now owned by Viacom). While Telefé proper is based in Buenos Aires, it uses a mix of its own programming and programming from the independent production sector in its schedule. This mixed programming is what is sent out to regional Argentina, though this time in a various amount of ways. Through its Telefé Interior subsidiary, it also owns a number of independent TV stations throughout regional Argentina (Telefé Interior here serves the same function as the old program production and distribution arm for its O&Os), albeit with greater local content in the schedule. Here is a twist on the old model - certainly before the dictatorship there were O&O stations, but these effectively functioned as local stations which just happened to have a distribution agreement with the production companies in Buenos Aires under common ownership. There are also a number of TV stations in regional Argentina which are independently-owned, though in this new age a good portion of them are commercially represented (and in fact are operated as if they were part of Telefé Interior) by Telefé itself, as well as few of the old-style affiliates with the production companies. What is different now is that there are now other ways for Telefé to saturate Argentina with its programming. In several areas, particularly areas with no terrestrial Telefé coverage (either of the main station itself or of its Telefé Interior regional stations), Telefé operates a repeater network which simulcasts the flagship Buenos Aires station as well as transmitting the same signal through cable and satellite TV (in the latter case known as Telefé Satelital and in the former case alongside the existing Telefé Interior stations). Outside of Argentina, Telefé also transmits an international version of its Buenos Aires channel; while ostensibly aimed at the Argentine diaspora to provide a link with home, its real purpose is as a promotional vehicle for Telefé to encourage other Latin American TV stations to buy more Argentine programs and in particular to enter into a distribution agreement with Telefé (and in fact in both Uruguay and Paraguay there are TV stations which for all intents and purposes are extensions of the Argentine TV model - in effect affiliates of Telefé - in their own respective countries). Only with one difference is Telefé different from other Argentine TV networks and much more in line with other Latin American TV networks. In most cases, following the traditional logic of Argentine TV, there is a big separation between the production company and their flagship Buenos Aires TV station (Canal 13 again is instructive; while PROARTEL was bought out by Clarín, one of Argentina's major newspapers, and renamed to Artear, and while Artear now owns some of its own stations in a much more direct manner than before and expanded its output to include other production companies, there is still a separation of powers between Artear and Canal 13). Telefé, however, uses the same branding not only for its flagship Buenos Aires station but also for the production company itself, which sounds very obvious to everyone else but not in Argentina. Thus there is a bit of confusion as far as Argentine law is concerned since Telefé has basically implemented what had previously been impossible, historically speaking, by gracing the name of the production company onto the major originating TV station - similar, in fact, to TV networks in North America. Such are the forces of globalization that Telefé thought in order to strengthen its brand identity it should have a consistent implementation throughout its holdings, its
patrimonio propio.
That, in a nutshell, is the basic structure of the Argentine TV model, and in a US context is actually much easier to implement than at first glance. I'd basically see a bit of both Canal 13/PROARTEL and Telefé in this scenario, with some quirks along the way. As obvious examples, CBS could use Time-Life as its program distribution and syndication arm in a manner akin to PROARTEL for stations and regional networks (as Time-Life had helped CBS in its expansion in Latin America in a similar manner), while ABC had
Worldvision which could be used for the same purpose. In a North American context, therefore, one could say the Argentine TV model is basically the syndication model gone amok as the default rather then as supplemental. That, plus the middle-market chains, would be interesting to see.