News broadcasting is the broadcasting of various news events and other information via television, radio or internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or television studio newsroom, or by a broadcast network. It may also include additional material such as sports coverage, weather forecasts, traffic reports, commentary and other material that the broadcaster feels is relevant to their audience.
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News programTelevision news refers to disseminating current events via the medium of television. A "news bulletin" or a "newscast" are television programs lasting from seconds to hours that provide updates on world, national, regional or local news events. Television news is very image-based, showing video of many of the events that are reported. Television channels may provide news bulletins as part of a regularly scheduled news program. Less often, television shows may be interrupted or replaced by breaking news ("news flashes") to provide news updates on current events of great importance or sudden events of great importance.
Radio news is the same as television news but is transmitted through the medium of the radio. It is more based on the audio aspect rather than the visual aspect. Sound bites are captured through various reporters and played back through the radio. News updates occur more often on the radio than on the television - usually about once or twice an hour.
Newscasts, also known as bulletins or news programs, will differ in content, tone and presentation style depending on the format of the channel on which they appear, and their timeslot. In most parts of the world, national television networks will have network bulletins featuring national and international news. The top rating shows will often be in the evening at 'prime time', but there are also often breakfast time newscasts of two to three hours in length. Rolling news channels broadcast news 24 hours a day. Many video and audio news reports presented on the Internet are updated 24 hours a day. Local news may be presented by stand-alone local TV stations, local stations affiliated to national networks or by local studios which 'opt-out' of national network programming at specified points. Different news programming may be aimed at different audiences, depending on age, socio-economic group or those from particular sections of society. 'Magazine-style' television shows may mix news coverage with topical lifestyle issues, debates or entertainment content.
Newscasts consist of several a reporter being interviewed by an anchor, known as a 'two-way', or by a guest involved in or offering analysis on the story being interviewed by a reporter or anchor. There may also be breaking news stories which will present live rolling coverage.
Packages will usually be filmed at a relevant location and edited in an editing suite in a newsroom or a remote contribution edit suite in a location some distance from the newsroom. They may also be edited in mobile editing trucks, or satellite trucks, and transmitted back to the newsroom. Live coverage will be broadcast from a relevant location and sent back to the newsroom via fixed cable links, microwave radio, production truck, satellite truck or via online streaming. Roles associated with television news include a technical director, floor director audio technician and a television crew of operators running character graphics (CG), teleprompters and professional video cameras. Most news shows are broadcast live.
Radio station newscasts can range from as little as a minute to as much as the station's entire schedule, such as the case of all-news radio, or talk radio. Stations dedicated to news or talk will often feature newscasts, or bulletins, usually at the top of the hour, usually between 3 and 8 minutes in length. They can be a mix of local, national and international news, as well as sport, entertainment, weather and traffic, or they may be incorporated into separate bulletins. There may also be shorter bulletins at the bottom of the hour, or three at fifteen minute intervals, or two at twenty minute intervals. All-news radio stations exist in some countries, primarily located in major metropolitan areas such as New York City, Toronto and Chicago, which often broadcast local, national and international news and feature stories on a set time schedule.
Local TV stations in the United States normally broadcast local news 3-4 times a day: 4:30, 5 and 6 a.m. in the morning; noon; 5 and 6 p.m. in the early evening; and 10 or 11 p.m. at night. Some stations carry morning newscasts at 4, 4:30, 7, 8 or 9 a.m., midday newscasts at 11 or 11:30 a.m., late afternoon newscasts at 4 or 4:30 p.m., or early evening newscasts at 5:30 or 6:30 p.m. Many Fox affiliates, affiliates of minor networks (such as The CW and MyNetworkTV) and independent stations air newscasts in the final hour of primetime (i.e., 10 p.m. in the Eastern and Pacific time zones or 9 p.m. in the Mountain and Central time zones in the U.S.). Stations that produce local newscasts typically produce as little as one to as much as ten hours of local news on weekdays and as little as one hour on weekends; news programming on weekends are typically limited to morning and evening newscasts as the variable scheduling of network sports programming usually prevents most stations from carrying midday newscasts (however a few stations located in the Eastern and Pacific time zones do produce weekend midday newscasts).
Since the early 1990s, independent stations and stations affiliated with a non-Big Three network have entered into "news share agreements", in which news production is outsourced to a major network station (usually an affiliate of ABC, NBC or CBS), often to avoid shouldering the cost of starting a news department from scratch. These commonly involve Fox, CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates (and previously affiliated of the now-defunct predecessors of the latter two networks, The WB and UPN) and in some cases, independent stations; however such agreements exist in certain markets between two co-owned/co-managed Big Three affiliates. News share agreements are most common with stations co-owned with a larger network affiliate or whose operations are jointly managed through a shared service or local marketing agreement. In cases where a station with an existing news department enters into a news share agreement, it will result either the two departments merging or the outright conversion of newscast production from in-house to outsourced production. Minor network affiliates involved in news share agreements will often carry far fewer hours of local newscasts than would be conceivable with an in-house news department to avoid competition with the outsourcing partner's own newscasts, as a result, minor network affiliates involved in these NSAs often will carry a morning newscast from 7-9 a.m. (in competition with the national network newscasts instead of airing competing with the Big Three affiliates' newscasts) and/or a primetime newscast at 10 p.m. ET/PT or 9 p.m. CT/MT, with no midday, late afternoon or early evening newscasts.
Unlike international broadcast stations which tend to brand under uniform news titles based solely on network affiliation, U.S. television stations tend to use varying umbrella titles for their newscasts; some title their newscasts utilizing the station's on-air branding (such as combining the network affiliation and channel number with the word "News"), others use franchised brand names (like Eyewitness News, Action News and NewsChannel) for their news programming. Conversely, the naming conventions for a station's newscast are sometimes used as a universal on-air branding for the station itself, and may be used for general promotional purposes, even used in promoting syndicated and network programming. Many stations title their newscasts with catchy names like Daybreak, Good Morning (insert city or region here), First at Four, Live at Five, Eleven @ 11:00 or Nightcast. These names are intended to set one station apart from the rest, especially for viewers who are chosen for audience measurement surveys. If the respondent was unable to provide a channel number or call letters, the newscast title is often enough for the appropriate station to receive Nielsen ratings credit.
The Big Three broadcast television networks produce morning and evening national newscasts (America This Morning, Good Morning America and ABC World News are broadcast by ABC, CBS broadcasts the CBS Morning News, CBS This Morning and the CBS Evening News, and NBC produces Early Today, Today and NBC Nightly News) as well as weekly newsmagazine series (NBC's Dateline, ABC's 20/20 and CBS News Sunday Morning, 48 Hours and 60 Minutes on CBS). Network morning newscasts usually air at 7 a.m. (English-language network morning shows are tape delayed for each time zone, while the Spanish-language morning shows are aired live in all time zones); network evening newscasts usually are broadcast live at 6:30 p.m. on the East coast and broadcast live in both the Eastern and Central time zones, with a secondary live broadcast at 6:30 p.m. Pacific time. Today was the first morning news program to be broadcast on American television and in the world, when it debuted on January 14, 1952; the earliest national evening news program was The Walter Compton News, a short-lived 15-minute newscast that aired on the DuMont Television Network from 1947 to 1948.
All four major English networks and the two largest Spanish networks also carry political talk programs on Sunday mornings (NBC's Meet the Press, ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation, Fox's sole news program Fox News Sunday, Univision's Al Punto and Telemundo's Enfoque); of these programs, Meet the Press holds the distinction of being the longest-running American television program as it has aired since November 6, 1947. CBS and ABC are currently the only networks that produce overnight news programs on weeknights in the form of Up to the Minute and World News Now, respectively; NBC previously produced overnight newscasts at different times, both of which have since been cancelled: NBC News Overnight from 1982 to 1983, and NBC Nightside from 1992 to 1999 (NBC currently does not offer a late night newscast, although the network currently airs the fourth hour of Today, and sister network CNBC's Mad Money on weeknights).
Spanish-language news programs are provided by Univision (which produces early and late evening editions of its flagship evening news program Noticiero Univision seven nights a week, along with weekday afternoon newsmagazine Primer Impacto and weekday morning program Despierta America) and Telemundo (whose flagship evening newscast is Noticiero Telemundo, which unlike Univision and their English-language competitors' national evening news programs airs on weeknights only, along with weekday morning program ¡Levántate! and weekday afternoon newsmagazine Al Rojo Vivo). Fox, The CW and MyNetworkTV do not produce national morning and evening news programs (although Fox made a brief attempt at a morning program in the late 1990s with Fox After Breakfast, and many CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates as well as independent stations air the syndicated news program The Daily Buzz).
24-hour news channels are devoted to current events 24-hours per day. They are often referred to as cable news channels. The originator of this format from which the name derives is CNN (as well as CNN International, CNN en Español and CNN-IBN), which originally stood for Cable News Network in reference to the then-new phenomenon of cable television. As satellite and other forms have evolved, the term cable news has become something of an anachronism but is still in common use; many other television channels have since been established, such as BBC World News, BBC News, Sky News, Al Jazeera, ABC News 24, France 24, STAR News, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Press TV, Russia Today, teleSUR and ABC News Now. Some news channels specialize even further, such as ESPNews (sports from ESPN); The Weather Channel (weather); CNBC, Bloomberg Television and Fox Business Network (financial).
Conversely, several cable news channels exist that carry news information specifically geared toward a particular metropolitan area, state or region such as NY1 in New York City, Ohio News Network (which is based in Columbus, Ohio, but is carried throughout the state of Ohio), Bay News 9 in Tampa, Florida and NewsChannel 8 in Washington, D.C. These channels are usually owned by a local cable operator and are distributed solely through cable television and IPTV system operators. Some broadcast television stations also operate cable channels (some of which are repeated through digital multicasting) that air the station's local newscasts in the form of live simulcasts from the television station, with rebroadcasts of the newscasts airing in the time period between live broadcasts.
A term which has entered common parlance to differentiate cable news from traditional news broadcasts is network news, in reference to the traditional television networks on which such broadcasts air. A classic example is the cable news channel MSNBC, which overlaps with (and, in the case of breaking world-changing events, pre-empts) its network counterpart NBC News. Most U.S. cable news networks do not air news programming 24 hours a day, often filling late afternoon, primetime and late night hours with news-based talk programs, documentaries and other specialty programming.
More often, AM stations will air a 6½ minute newscast on the top of the hour, which can be either a local report, a national report from a radio network such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, Fox News Radio or ABC Radio, or a mix of both local and national content, including weather and traffic reports. Some stations also air a two minute report at the bottom of the hour.
FM stations, unless they feature a talk radio format, usually only air minute-long news capsules featuring a quick review of events and an abbreviated weather forecast, and usually only in drive time periods or in critical emergencies, since FM stations usually focus more on playing music. Traffic reports also air on FM stations, depending on the market.
Unlike in United States, most Canadian television stations have license requirements to offer locally-produced newscasts in some form. Educational television station are exempt from these requirements; multicultural television stations are also not required to carry news programming, however some stations licensed as a multicultural station do produce local newscasts in varied languages (such as the Omni Television station group). Canadian television stations normally broadcast newscast between two and four times a day: usually at noon; 5, 5:30 and 6 p.m. in the evening, and 11 p.m. at night (there are some variations to this: stations affiliated with CTV usually air their late evening newscasts at 11:30 p.m., due to the scheduling of the network's national evening news program CTV National News at 11 p.m. in all time zones, while most CBC Television-owned stations carry a 10-minute newscast at 10:55 p.m., following The National). Some stations carry morning newscasts (usually starting at 5:30 or 6 a.m., and ending at 9 a.m.). Unlike in the United States, a primetime newscast in the 10:00 p.m. timeslot is uncommon (Global owned-and-operated station CKND-DT in Winnipeg, Manitoba is currently the only television station in the country carrying a primetime newscast); conversely, pre-5 a.m. local newscasts are also uncommon in Canada, Hamilton, Ontario independent station CHCH-DT, whose weekdaily programming consists largely of local news, is currently the only station in the country that starts its weekday morning newscasts before 5:30 a.m. (the station's morning news block begins at 4 a.m. on weekdays).
Like with U.S. television, many stations use varied titles for their newscasts; this is particularly true with owned-and-operated stations of Global and Citytv (Global's stations use titles based on daypart such as News Hour for the noon and early evening newscasts and News Final for 11 p.m. newscasts, while all six Citytv-owned broadcast stations produce morning news/talk programs under the umbrella title Breakfast Television and its flagship station CITY-DT/Toronto's evening newscasts are titled CityNews). Overall umbrella titles for news programming use the titling schemes "(Network or system name) News" for network-owned stations or "(Callsign) News" for affiliates not directly owned by a network or television system.
CBC Television, Global and CTV each produce national evening newscasts (The National, Global National and CTV National News, respectively), which unlike the American network newscasts do not air against one another as they are scheduled in non-competitive time slots; while Global National airs at the same early evening time slot as the American evening network newscasts, The National's 10 p.m. ET slot competes against primetime entertainment programming on the private broadcast networks, while CTV National News airs against locally-produced 11 p.m. newscasts on other stations. The National, which has aired on CBC Television since 1954, is the longest-running national network newscast in Canada. All three networks also produce weekly newsmagazines The Fifth Estate (aired since 1975), 16:9 (aired since 2008) and W5 (aired since 1966 and currently the longest-running network newsmagazine in Canada).
CTV's Canada AM, which has aired since 1975, is the sole national morning news program on broadcast television in Canada, although it has since been relegated to semi-national status as most CTV owned-and-operated stations west of the Ontario-Manitoba border dropped the program during the Summer and Fall of 2011 in favor of locally-produced morning newscasts. The Sunday morning talk show format is relatively uncommon on Canadian television, the closest program baring similarities to the format was CTV's news and interview series Question Period, this changed when Global debuted the political affairs show The West Block in November 2011.
Canada is host to several 24-hour cable news channels, consisting of domestically-operated, U.S.-based cable channels and news channels operated outside of North America. Domestic national news channels include CTV News Channel and Sun News Network, which offer general news programming, Business News Network, which carries business news and The Weather Network, which offers national and local forecasts. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation operates two national news networks, English-language CBC News Network and French-language RDI. Other Canadian specialty news channels broadcasting in French include general news networks Argent and Le Canal Nouvelles, and MétéoMédia, a French-language sister to The Weather Network.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission authorizes some cable channels from foreign countries to be carried on cable and satellite operators provided that they are linked to a Canadian network. Amongst news channels, all four major U.S. cable news networks: CNN, HLN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel are available on most providers, along with channels from outside North America such as Al Jazeera English from Qatar, BBC World News from the United Kingdom, Deutsche Welle from Germany and RT from Russia.
Regionally-based news channels are fairly uncommon in Canada in comparison to the United States, with only two 24-hour regional news channels currently in existence, which are based in the province of Ontario, CityNews Channel and CP24, which center on the Toronto area (terrestrial independent station CHCH-DT/Hamilton serves as a de facto regional news channel for the Golden Horseshoe region of Southern Ontario; since August 2009, the station airs rolling local news block on weekday mornings and afternoons (currently airing from 4 a.m.-5 p.m.), along with nightly hour-long newscasts at 6 and 11 p.m.; the remainder of the schedule consists of syndicated programming, movies, imported American network television series and infomercials).
