The 11 o'clock news is a term used for news

News

News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...

 programs that are broadcast at 11:00 p.m. local time. This is the traditional hour for the late local news broadcast on CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

, NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

, and ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 affiliated stations in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 that are in the Eastern Time Zone or the Pacific Time Zone

Pacific Time Zone

The Pacific Time Zone observes standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time . The clock time in this zone is based on the mean solar time of the 120th meridian west of the Greenwich Observatory. During daylight saving time, its time offset is UTC-7.In the United States...

.

By contrast, stations that are affiliated with Fox

Fox Broadcasting Company

Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

, The CW, MyNetworkTV

MyNetworkTV

MyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...

, or that are independent station

Independent station

An independent station is in the category of television terminology used to describe a television station broadcasting in the United States or Canada that is not affiliated with any television network....

s tend to have newscasts at 10:00 p.m. (Eastern/Pacific), 9:00 p.m. (Central/Mountain). Many stories on the 11 p.m. newscasts are follow-ups of ones airing earlier in the day. The stock phrase "film at 11

Film at 11

The idiom "Film at 11" originates from television news broadcasting. Traditionally, it follows a promotion aired earlier in the evening for a particular story to be detailed on a later local news broadcast at 11 p.m., a traditional timeslot for local news broadcasts in the Eastern and Pacific time...

" comes from promos run during prime time

Prime time

Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...

for the upcoming newscast, promising shots from a breaking story during the 11 p.m. newscast. However, it has gone out of the television lexicon due to technological advances in remote broadcasting have made getting film back to the station a thing of the past.