Twenty-four hours a day, a variety of news, information, and sports programming from all the major networks is transmitted live from the AFN Broadcast Center. Military broadcasting personnel, as well as civilian employees, staff the operation.

The American Forces Network Broadcast Center (AFN BC) is under the umbrella of Headquarters Defense Media Activity's (DMA) Broadcast Services Directorate (BS) located at Fort George Meade Maryland. The AFN BC is located in Riverside California and provides programming for military radio and television outlets overseas. These outlets serve American service men and women, Department of Defense (DoD) civilians, and their families stationed in over 175 countries around the world where English language broadcast service is unavailable or inadequate. The AFN BC is responsible for reflecting an accurate cross-section of what is widely available to stateside audiences of the American radio and television industry. Programs are uplinked from the AFN BC to a series of satellites and delivered worldwide via a secure transmission path. This global radio and television network service is called AFN, the American Forces Network.

Navy Direct To Sailor Control Room sends TV programs to sailors on ships.