ABC News Radio is the radio service of ABC News, a division of the ABC Television Network. Formerly known as ABC Radio News, ABC News Radio feeds, through Cumulus Media Networks, newscasts on the hour to its more than 2,000 affiliates. ABC News Radio is the largest commercial radio news organization in the US.

ABC Radio aired the first broadcast report of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Texas at 18:30 UTC and Don Gardiner anchored the initial bulletin at 18:36:50 UTC, minutes before any other radio or television network.

Beginning in the late 1950s, ABC fed hourly newscasts to affiliates at :55 past the hour until January 1, 1968, when the singular ABC radio network "split" into four separate and distinct programming services. The American Contemporary Network, on major-market music stations like WABC New York, aired news at :55. American Information Network news ran at the top of the hour on major-market stations like KGO San Francisco. The American FM Network (now ABC News Now) carried news geared toward adult FM listeners at :15 past, while the American Entertainment Network had news at the bottom of the hour.

Before the "split," ABC reached an understanding with the FCC concerning the "Chain Broadcasting" rule, which forced the sale of NBC's Blue network and enabled ABC's creation in 1943. Each of the four networks could be cleared only when no other ABC network was on the air in a particular market. Though each of the four new "networks" were distributed to all member radio stations nationally over the same broadcast-quality telephone line, the move allowed ABC to have as many as four affiliates in one city—a major competitive advantage and a dramatic turning point in the history of network radio. Two additional news networks, ABC Rock and Direction, were added on January 4, 1982 after the network became a satellite-delivered service. The network was strict in its insistence that there be no simultaneous broadcast of more than a single network in a market, except during crisis or special event coverage.

Of the six networks, only Information and Entertainment remain as separate newscast services today, with their programming delivered via satellite. The "Information" network newscasts clear on major-market stations like WABC New York, KABC Los Angeles, WLS Chicago, KGO San Francisco, WMAL Washington, and WBAP Ft. Worth/Dallas (all of which were owned by ABC prior to the sale to Citadel Broadcasting) and many other large market stations. "Entertainment" network news airs mainly on small and medium-market stations. These ABC News Radio newscasts originate from the news division's bureaus in New York, Washington and Los Angeles and air exactly at the top of the hour. The standard format is the same for both, with the Entertainment network having shorter stories and the Information network having slightly longer stories and more global coverage.

Individual soundbites and reporter packages are fed to stations via satellite and an affiliate website. In 2006, ABC News Radio launched an internet-delivered "FM" news product targeted toward a younger music audience, often customized for individual affiliates.

In addition to the top-of-the-hour newscasts, ABC News also provides its radio affiliates with headlines, briefs and "status reports" that air at :30, :50, :10, and :20 and :40 past the hour, as well as special reports, special event coverage and longform programming.

ABC News Radio also produces "News and Comment", which originates from Chicago and began in 1951. On January 1, 1968 Paul Harvey became a part of ABC's American Entertainment Network, although the program was also heard on stations affiliated with all four ABC Networks, if the "Entertainment" affiliate was not as powerful as another ABC affiliate in a given market. After Paul Harvey's death on February 28, 2009; Gil Gross took over the "News & Comment" program less than a month later. The "News and Comment" time slot is currently held by Doug Limerick.

Anchors[link]

In addition, Charles Gibson anchored the 5PM EST Information Network newscast on weekdays before he retired in 2009.

Correspondents[link]

See also[link]

• ABC News

External links[link]

• ABC News Radio official website
• ABC News Radio Show Page on ABC Radio Networks
• Jeff Roteman's tribute to ABC Radio News

All-news radio is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcast of news.

All-news radio is available in both local and syndicated forms, and is carried in some form on both major US satellite radio networks. Some all-news stations, like KYW, WBBM and WCBS, carry sports, and all-news stations may occasionally carry public affairs programs, simulcasts of TV news magazine or political affairs shows like 60 Minutes and Face the Nation, and national radio shows revolving around news such as the CBS News Weekend Roundup. Some all news stations, like KNX and WBZ, run talk radio programs on weekends and during off peak hours, while WBBM also carries programming revolving around the NFL Chicago Bears, as that station airs the play-by-play for the team. Some CBS news radio stations also air When Radio Was in the overnight hours, a nightly program featuring rebroadcasts of old time radio. Most of these stations are owned by CBS Radio, and therefore are affiliated with the CBS Radio network.

Many stations brand themselves Newsradio but only run continuous news during the morning and afternoon drive times. These stations are properly labeled as "news/talk" talk radio stations. Also, some National Public Radio stations identify themselves as News and Information stations, which means that in addition to running the NPR news magazines like Morning Edition and All Things Considered, they run other information programs such as Fresh Air, Talk of the Nation, and the BBC World Service.

History[link]

According to a Wikipedia site for 1100 KFAX radio in San Francisco, Calif., what had been KJBS radio changed to KFAX in late 1959 when the station changed formats from music, news, and sports, to become the nation's first all-news radio station. However, this experiment proved unsuccessful.

Broadcasting pioneer Arthur W. Arundel is credited with creating the first 24-hour All News station, radio or television, in the United States in January 1961 on his owned and operated WAVA in Washington. The station’s success was largely driven by a Nation’s Capital audience then riveted to news of the Vietnam War and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. Arundel helped other stations in New York and Chicago also to convert to his All News All the Time format and then met direct competition from Washington Post-owned WTOP in 1969.

Radio programmer Gordon McLendon, who has been credited with pioneering top 40, all-sports, background music and telephone talk formats, is also an acknowledged pioneer in the all-news format. XTRA News went on the air May 5, 1961 from XETRA, a station licensed to Tijuana, Mexico, that could be heard as far away as Los Angeles, followed shortly afterwards by W-NUS in Chicago.

Its format, which can be heard to this day on many all-news stations, was to start each half hour with world and national news, preferably from a network, then switch to locally-anchored area news, filling out the half hour with sports, business news and features. XETRA had no outside reporters and got all of its local news from the AP and UPI wire services. Both stations operated using a 15 minute news cycle (newscasts repeated every 15 minutes)

Another early prototypical all-news format was in use by WABC-FM in New York during the 114-day 1962 New York City newspaper strike which lasted from December 8, 1962 to March 31, 1963.^[1] The format only lasted as long as the strike, though, and reverted to its regular format of Broadway show tunes and simulcasting of its AM sister station after the strike ended. The following year, ABC's Detroit FM station, WXYZ-FM made a similar effort during a newspaper strike. Both stations, which previously had simulcast their AM sister stations, carried ABC Radio Network news programs (including those not usually by the AM Top 40 stations), AM local newscasts plus wire service stories read to fill the balance of the time.

Group W, the broadcast division of Westinghouse, adopted an all-news format 30-minute cycle (despite the later slogan "You give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world.") that eschewed network newscasts so that local and non-local news could be freely mixed, according to what was more interesting or important on any given day. Westinghouse also used field reporters at its all-news stations, which included 1010 WINS New York, KYW Newsradio 1060 and KFWB News 98 Los Angeles. WINS began broadcasting its all-news format in April 1965. A second New York all-news station, WCBS began all-news programming on August 28, 1967, although its first broadcasts were on its sister FM station after a plane crashed into its tower, knocking the AM station off the air. CBS converted some of its other AM outlets to this WCBS "Newsradio" format over the next several months and years, including WBBM-AM, KCBS-AM, KNX and WEEI (which CBS sold in the 1980s).

In 1975, the NBC Radio Network shut down its profitable weekend music and information service NBC Monitor to launch the News & Information Service (NIS), the first all-news radio network. It was closed two years later in a cost-cutting move though it had strong ratings in some key markets.

In 1994, an effort similar to NIS was launched by the Associated Press. It was officially known as AP All-News Radio and had many affiliates from coast to coast. However, it was informally better known by its promotional title of "The News Station." The Associated Press discontinued the all-news format in July 2005.

The last national all-news radio service in the United States, the audio feed of CNN Headline News, began a long phaseout in 2007. Headline News's audio feed was popular among all-news stations, particularly after the AP disbanded their format in 2005, until the TV station decided to abandon its all-news format and add talk show programming in prime time, when many smaller stations do not have air staff and rely on a network feed, in 2006. Most of the Headline News affiliates became talk radio stations, with a handful of daytime-only stations keeping the feed. CNN also for a time offered a second all news-channel with the hour filled with CNN Radio newscasts on the hour and half-hour and business, sports and feature segments from CNN Radio and Headline News at specific points each hour, plus time segments for local news to be inserted. Many smaller affiliates, however, preferred Headline News audio which was more suited to turn-key (or unattended, automated) operation. CNN Radio ceased operations April 1, 2012.^[2]

While not a full-time NIS, the CBS Radio Network provides significant content for many, if not most, all-news radio stations in the United States, especially local stations in smaller markets. Talk Radio Network introduced an all-news service, America's Radio News Network, in 2009, beginning with a midday news block and since expanding into other dayparts; the network does not yet program overnights or weekends, but allows for tape delay for such purposes. Cumulus Media Networks offers a late-evening newsmagazine hosted by John Batchelor seven nights a week, while Dial Global offers two hourlong morning news magazines (NBC's First Light and Jim Bohannon's America in the Morning) six days a week.

All-news has for years been a top-rated radio format in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities, but as big city traffic worsens and people work longer hours that increase the urgency of planning their day ahead, the focus of such stations has increasingly been on traffic and weather, often updated every 10 minutes. Attempts at long-form commercial all-news stations, such as Washington Post Radio, have been largely unsuccessful.

As of 2012 Cumulus is planning to implement all-news to Los Angeles, Atlanta, Minneapolis, and Nashville after the start of all-news on KGO and KLIF they will be branded as the News and Information stations. Another newcomer to all-news in the early 2010s is Randy Michaels, who (through his Merlin Media company) has acquired FM stations in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia in preparation for all-news formats in those cities (although the Philadelphia station will also include talk programs).

Stations[link]

For a near-complete list of News/Talk radio stations, see Category:News and talk radio stations

All-news stations in the United States[link]

• KCBS - San Francisco, California (CBS Radio)
• KLIF - Dallas, Texas (Cumulus Media) (all-news for daytime hours only)
• KLIV - San Jose, California (Empire Broadcasting)
• KGO - San Francisco, California (Cumulus Media)
• KNX - Los Angeles, California (CBS Radio)
• KOMO - Seattle, Washington (Fisher Communications)
• KQV - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Richard Mellon Scaife) (all-news for daytime hours only)
• KRLD - Dallas, Texas (CBS Radio) (all-news for daytime hours only)
• KROI - Greater Houston (Radio One)
• KYW - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (CBS Radio)
• WBBM - Chicago, Illinois (CBS Radio)
• WIQI - Chicago, Illinois (Randy Michaels)
• WBZ - Boston, Massachusetts (CBS Radio) (all-news for daytime hours only)
• WCBS - New York City (since August 28, 1967)
• WEMP - New York City (Randy Michaels)
• WINS - New York City (since April 19, 1965) (CBS Radio)
• WINK - Fort Myers, Florida (Fort Myers Broadcasting) (all-news for daytime hours only)
• WNEW - Washington, D.C. (CBS Radio)
• WPTF - Raleigh, North Carolina (all-news for weekday daytime hours only) (Curtis Media Group)
• WTOP - Washington, D.C. (Hubbard Broadcasting)
• WWJ - Detroit, Michigan (CBS Radio)
• WUAM - Albany, New York (Ernie Anastos) (Audio simulcast of YNN Capital Region, a local cable news channel)
• WYAY - Atlanta, Georgia (Cumulus Media)

All-news stations in Australia[link]

• ABC NewsRadio - National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
• RPH - capital cities and some regional centres (various)

All-news stations in Canada[link]

Between 1977 and 1989 Canada All News Limited operated Canada's first attempt at all news radio with a network of nine FM stations in major Canadian cities, all using the call letters CKO (or CK News). The effort was similar in some ways to NBC Radio's News and Information Service, mostly national news programming with cut-ins for individual stations to broadcast local news. The network was also the first to offer live broadcasts of Question Time in the Canadian parliament. The network was plagued by low ratings and poor advertising sales (similar to problems faced by all-news radio networks operated by NBC, CNN and AP in the US). Ironically, the stations listed below operate in cities which CK News had served previously.

Note: All are owned by Rogers Broadcasting unless noted

• CFFR ("660News") - Calgary, Alberta
• CFTR ("680News") - Toronto, Ontario
• CKWX ("News1130") - Vancouver, British Columbia
• CIWW ("1310News") - Ottawa, Ontario
• CHQT ("inews880") - Edmonton, Alberta (Corus Entertainment)
• Canada 360 (XM Radio Canada)
• Quoi de Neuf (French) (XM Radio Canada)

News-talk radio stations 570 News in Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario, News95.7 in Halifax, News91.9 in Moncton, New Brunswick and News88.9 in Saint John, New Brunswick (also Rogers Broadcasting-owned stations) use an all-news wheel for their morning and afternoon shows, simulating their sister station, 680News in Toronto.

In February 2001, Corus Entertainment launched an all-news sister station to Vancouver news-talk station CKNW. All news NW2 (CJNW AM730, formerly CKLG) was branded as "24 hour news radio, powered by CKNW." NW2 shared newsroom resources with CKNW, including several anchors and reporters. However, NW2 did not achieve broad appeal, and was shut down in May 2002. The station currently airs an all-traffic format under the call sign CHMJ.

That same year, Corus acquired two all-news stations in Montreal, CINW ("940 News") at 940 AM in English and CINF ("Info 690") at 690 AM in French, which had launched in late 1999. These frequencies were previously operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's English and French radio services respectively before the public broadcaster switched to the FM dial. But as AM radio listenership in Montreal declined sharply in recent years – only longtime talk-radio stations CJAD in English and CKAC in French (now an all-sports station) remained popular – neither CINW nor CINF were able to make a profit (even after several format changes on CINW), and Corus finally shut down both stations on January 29, 2010.

All-news stations in the United Kingdom[link]

• LBC News 1152 - Rolling news for London from 5.00 am to 7.00 pm, with simulcast of LBC 97.3 at other times.
• BBC Radio Five Live - News and sport station from the BBC with sports commentaries at evenings and weekends.

All-news stations in Germany[link]

All the all-news stations in Germany are operated by the local public broadcasters in the different states.

• SWR cont.ra (SWR content radio) from South West Broadcasting Südwestrundfunk
• Inforadio from Broadcasting Berlin/Brandenburg Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg
• B5 aktuell (B5 up-to-date) from Bavarian Broadcasting Bayerischer Rundfunk
• hr-info from Hessian Broadcasting Hessischer Rundfunk
• MDR Info from Central German Broadcasting Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk
• NDR Info from North German Broadcasting Norddeutscher Rundfunk

All-news stations in Italy[link]

• Radio 24 - The main Italian private all-news radio, owned by the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.
• Babboleo News - Italian first local all news radio in Genoa, Liguria.

All-news stations in Ireland[link]

• RTÉ Choice is a news service with news from around the world including several broadcasts from internation stations.

• RTÉ Radio 1 is a Mixed Genre service but it provides the most comprehensive news and current affairs coverage in the country.

• Newstalk is an independent national all news radio service operated by Communicorp.

All-news stations in France[link]

• France Info - Europe's first all news radio station broadcast since 1987.
• BFM Business - Business information

All-news stations in the Netherlands[link]

• BNR Nieuwsradio - Non-stop news.

All-News Radio Stations in Norway[link]

NRK Alltid nyheter- NRK's All-News Station.

All-news stations in Malaysia[link]

• Radio24 (Malaysia) - All news station operated by state news agency, BERNAMA.

All-news stations in the Philippines[link]

AM Band

Almost all AM stations in the Philippines are all-news stations. These are:

• DWIZ 882
• GMA Super Radyo DZBB 594
• RMN DZXL 558 kHz
• DZRH
• ABS-CBN DZMM Radyo Patrol 630
• Radyo Inquirer 990
• Radyo ng Bayan 738
• DZRJ 810AM The Voice of the Philippines (English)
• Aksyon Radyo

FM Band

• Radyo5 92.3 News FM
• 97.5 News and Talk FM (Naga City)

All-news stations in Spain[link]

• Radio 5 Todo Noticias - National news station from the Spanish public broadcaster
• Catalunya Informació - Catalan news station for Catalonia
• Radio Andalucía Información- Regional news station for Andalusia

See also[link]

• Radio format

References[link]

External links[link]

• AM Broadcasting History - Various Articles
• News radio stations in the US and some international.
• Cumulus plans to spread all-news to other Markets.

ABC News

File:ABCNewsLogo.png ABC News headquarters on West 66th Street in New York City, New York (November 2008)
Division of:	American Broadcasting Company (ABC)
Key people:	Anne Sweeney President & Co-Chair Disney-ABC Television Group Ben Sherwood, President of ABC News Diane Sawyer and David Muir, Lead Co-Anchor's
Founded:	June 15, 1945
Headquarters:	New York City, United States
Studios:	ABC News Headquarters, New York City Times Square Studios, New York City Newseum, Washington, D.C. ABC-owned stations across the United States
Area served:	Worldwide
Broadcast programs:	20/20 ABC News Brief America This Morning Good Morning America Good Morning America Weekend Edition Nightline Primetime This Week World News Now World News with David Muir World News with Diane Sawyer
Parent:	The Walt Disney Company
Slogan:	See the Whole Picture
Website:	ABCnews.com
Web Portal:	go.com

ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of the American Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Its flagship program is World News with Diane Sawyer; other programs include morning show Good Morning America, Nightline, television news magazine shows Primetime & 20/20, and Sunday morning political affairs program This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

History[link]

Early years[link]

This section reads like a news release and needs to be rewritten.

ABC began news broadcasts early in its independent existence as a radio network after the Federal Communications Commission ordered the former NBC Blue Network to be spun off as an independent company in 1943. This was done to keep single or a few companies such as NBC and CBS from dominating radio broadcasting in the U.S., and in particular, from dominating news and political broadcasting and projecting narrow points-of-view. Television broadcasting was suspended however, during World War II.

Regular ABC television news broadcasts began soon after ABC started transmitting from its initial New York City television station and production center in late summer 1948. ABC-TV news broadcasts have continued as the ABC television network spread across the country, a process that took many years, from that beginning in 1948 through today, but they have not always had the same level of success that they enjoy now. Throughout the 1950s, the 1960s, and the early 1970s, ABC News consistently ranked third in viewership behind CBS News and NBC News. Until the 1970s, the ABC-TV network had fewer affiliate stations, and also weaker prime-time programming lineups to support the network's news departments than the two larger networks had, each of which had established their radio news operations during the 1930s.

Under Roone Arledge[link]

Only after Roone Arledge, the head of ABC Sports at that time, became the president of ABC News in 1977, at a time when this network's prime-time entertainment programs were achieving good ratings and drawing in advertising revenues and profits to the ABC corporation overall, was ABC able to invest the resources to make it a major source of news telecasting. Arledge, known for experimenting with the broadcast "model", created many of ABC News's most popular and enduring programs, including 20/20, ABC World News, This Week, Nightline, and Primetime Live.

ABC News gained respect in the early 1980s by covering the Iran hostage crisis and, later, for covering the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area with live telecasts.

The ABC News slogan, "More Americans get their news from ABC News than from any other source", is a claim that refers to the number of people who watch, listen, and read ABC News programming on television, the radio, and the Internet, and not necessarily to the telecasts alone.^[1]

Association with ESPN[link]

ESPN, a sports-news organization with several cable and satellite television channels — and also owned by Disney — provides sports bulletins and video for some of ABC News's programs, especially the overnight programs.

Job layoffs[link]

In February 2010, ABC News announced it would lay off hundreds of staff members or up to 25% of its total work force and close all news bureaus outside of its headquarters in Washington and New York, including bureaus in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago.^[2]

In the wake of the job cuts, a significant controversy erupted online in May 2010 after it was announced the former VP of news coverage, Mimi Gurbst, was leaving the network to become a guidance counselor.^[3] A human interest story in the New York Observer reported that Gurbst was a "cherished" mentor inside the news division.^[4] Reporters who closely follow TV news observed that a large number of current and former ABC News staffers went online to vigorously respond that Gurbst had helped perpetuate a negative culture with ABC News.^[5][6]

International broadcasts[link]

ABC News programming is shown daily on the 24-hour news network Orbit News in Europe and the Middle East. This includes several shows from ABC News. 'Orbit News is network of three 24-hour satellite and cable channels offering exclusively American news programming from ABC, NBC, PBS, and MSNBC to U.S. expats and other viewers abroad, primarily geared towards an audience in the Arab countries. The network is available on digital satellite and cable in Europe, Middle East and North Africa, however, cable operators in Europe are currently unable to carry the channels due to unsolved rights issues.

It is also available online at ABC News Now.

In the United Kingdom, ABC World News appears regularly at 1:30 a.m. local time on the BBC News Channel, which itself may be simulcast on BBC One or BBC Two during the overnight period. No commercials are presented because the BBC's services in the U.K. are financed through license fees. ABC and the BBC also share video segments and reporters as needed in producing their newscasts.

In Australia, ABC World News is broadcast at 10:30 a.m. daily and Nightline is telecast at 1:30 a.m. daily on Sky News Australia. This can be confusing in Australia, where "ABC News" means the news broadcasts of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Also, Primetime is broadcast at 2:00 p.m. on Saturdays (extended edition) and at 1:30 p.m. on Thursdays. 20/20 is broadcast at 2:00 p.m. on Sundays (extended edition) and on Wednesdays at 1:30 p.m.

In New Zealand, ABC World News is broadcast daily at 5:10 p.m. and at again at 11:35 p.m. Just as with the BBC in the U.K., these are shown commercial-free on Television New Zealand's TVNZ 7 channel.

Other forms of broadcasting[link]

ABC News Radio, a service syndicated by Cumulus Media Networks, broadcasts newscasts on the hour, live feeds and specialty news, sports and entertainment programming to approximately 2,000 radio affiliates nationwide. As part of Disney's sale of the ABC Radio division to Citadel Broadcasting in 2007, ABC News entered into an exclusive agreement with Citadel to distribute its radio news service on terrestrial stations (Citadel has since merged with Cumulus Media).

ABC NewsOne is ABC News's affiliate news service. It gathers and feeds regional, national and international news material to ABC affiliates around the country and foreign networks.

ABC News Now is the ABC's 24-hour news channel available online and other sources such as mobile phones.

A thirty-second ABC News Brief is broadcast weekdays at 2:58 p.m. ET following The Revolution, before the start of General Hospital (though these newsbriefs are not aired on all ABC stations).

A news brief containing information relevant to college students is shown every hour on mtvU, and ABC News segments are packaged or customized for broadcast over Wal-Mart's in-store television network.

Slogans[link]

• See the Whole Picture."

• More Americans get their news from ABC News than from any other source.

It means that more Americans get their news from the combined sources of ABC News — television, radio and internet — than from any other news provider.

• From the global resources of ABC News this is:
  • Nightline (since 2005)
  • World News with Diane Sawyer (2009–2010)

• "From ABC News, Live in Times Square," this is:
  • "Good Morning America" (Since 2009 on weekdays. They used New York on Weekends rather than just Times Square. Starting on March, They started using the date on weekdays)

• "From ABC News"
  • "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" (March 2010-May 2010, August 2010–Present)
  • "ABC World News" (March 2010-May 2010)

• "From ABC News Headquarters" this is:
  • ABC World News with Diane Sawyer (May 2010-August 2010)
  • "ABC World News" (May 2010–present)

Former notable personnel[link]