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

The Television-Audio Support Activity (T-ASA) and the American Forces Network Broadcast Center (AFN BC) are under the umbrella of the Defense Media Center (DMC), located at March Air Reserve Base near Riverside, California. The  AFN BC is the sole programming source 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 177 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 DMC to a series of satellites and delivered worldwide via a secure transmission path using MPEG-2 digital compression technology. 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.