

Typically, episodes were aired twice per calendar year, once during the spring and once during the fall during Nielsen Ratings sweeps weeks. NBC tried to revive the competition in August 2003 with Tony Potts as host, but with an intra-network contest consisting of personalities from the NBC family of networks. One final competition aired in December 1988. The program proved popular and continued for an additional eight and a half years, with subsequent episodes airing approximately every six months until May 1985. The first Battle was broadcast on ABC starting in November 1976.

In 2017, ABC revived the series as a summer series which ran from June 29 to September 7, 2017. Also in 2005, ESPN premiered a short-lived, sports-themed spinoff version of Battle of the Network Stars as Battle of the Gridiron Stars featuring twenty players from the AFC and NFC competing in a variety of tasks that had nothing to do with football. In 2005, Bravo premiered a revived version of the show named Battle of the Network Reality Stars. In 2003, NBC attempted to revive Battle of the Network Stars with a two-hour special.

A total of 19 of these competitions were held between 19, all of which were aired by ABC.
