Television news in the United States

Television news in the United States has evolved over many years. It has gone from a simple 10- to 15-minute format in the evenings, to a variety of programs and channels. Today, viewers can watch local, regional and national news programming, in many different ways, any time of the day.

Origin of television news

Lowell Thomas hosted the first-ever news broadcast on television in 1930 and the first regularly scheduled television-news broadcasts in 1940, which were simply simulcasts of his nightly NBC network radio newscast, with the television broadcast seen only in New York over pioneer NBC television station WNBT (now WNBC). The television simulcast lasted for only a few months.

The first serious attempt at dedicated television news broadcasts in the United States was by CBS. Upon becoming commercial station WCBW (now WCBS-TV) in 1941, the pioneer New York CBS television station broadcast two daily news programs, at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. weekdays, anchored by Richard Hubbell. Most of the newscasts featured Hubbell reading a script with only occasional cutaways to a map or still photograph.

Fox News Channel

Fox News Channel (FNC), also known as Fox News, is an American basic cable and satellite news television channel that is owned by the Fox Entertainment Group subsidiary of 21st Century Fox. As of February 2015, approximately 94,700,000 American households (81.4% of cable, satellite & telco customers) receive the Fox News Channel. The channel broadcasts primarily from studios at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York City, New York. .

The channel was created by Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who hired former Republican Party media consultant and NBC executive Roger Ailes as its founding CEO. It launched on October 7, 1996, to 17 million cable subscribers. It grew during the late 1990s and 2000s to become the dominant cable news network in the United States.

Fox News Channel has been accused of biased reporting and promoting the Republican Party. The channel has also been cited as detrimental to the integrity of news overall. Fox News Channel employees have responded that news reporting operates independently of its opinion and entertainment, and have denied bias in news reporting.

News broadcasting

News broadcasting is the medium of 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.

Television news

Television 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. There are numerous providers of broadcast news content such as NBC, CNN or Fox News, as well as numerous programs that regularly provide this content such as NBC Nightly News. Television news is very image-based, showing video footage of many of the events that are reported; still photography is also used in reporting news stories, although not as much in recent years as in the early days of broadcast television. 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 reports ("news flashes") to provide news updates on events of great importance.

Kelly Slater

Robert Kelly Slater (born February 11, 1972) is an American professional surfer known for his competitive prowess and style. He has been crowned World Surf League Champion a record 11 times, including 5 consecutive titles in 1994–98. He is the youngest (at age 20) and the oldest (at age 39) to win the title. Upon winning his 5th world title in 1997, Slater passed Australian surfer Mark Richards to become the most successful champion in the history of the sport. In 2007 he also became the all-time leader in career event wins by winning the Boost Mobile Pro event at Lower Trestles near San Clemente, California. The previous record was held by Slater's childhood hero, three-time world champion Tom Curren.

After earlier being awarded the title prematurely as a result of a miscalculation by the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP), on November 6, 2011 Slater officially won his eleventh ASP world title at the Rip Curl Pro Search San Francisco, by winning his 4th round heat.

In May 2005, in the final heat of the Billabong Tahiti Pro contest at Teahupo'o, Slater became the first surfer ever to be awarded two perfect scores for a total 20 out of 20 points under the ASP two-wave scoring system (the corresponding honor under the previous three-wave system belongs to fellow American Shane Beschen who achieved the feat in 1996). He did it again on June 2013 at the quarter finals at the Volcom Fiji Pro with two perfect ten waves, only the fourth person in history to do so. Since 1990, Slater had been sponsored primarily by surfwear industry giant Quiksilver until his recent departure on April 1, 2014 to collaborate with fashion brand conglomerate Kering .

Time Warner

Time Warner Inc. (TWI, at one former interval named AOL Time Warner, stylized as TimeWarner since 2003) is an American Multinational media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. It is currently the world's third largest television networks and filmed TV & entertainment company in terms of revenue (after Comcast and The Walt Disney Company), and at one time was the world's largest media conglomerate.

Time Warner was formed in 1990 through the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications. The current company consists largely of the assets of the former Warner Communications, as well as HBO (a Time Inc. subsidiary prior to the Warner merger) and the assets of Turner Broadcasting (acquired in 1996). Time Warner currently has major operations in film and television, with a limited amount of publishing operations. Among its assets are New Line Cinema, HBO, Turner Broadcasting System, The CW Television Network, Warner Bros., Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim, CNN, DC Comics, Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios, Hanna-Barbera, Esporte Interativo, Castle Rock Entertainment and NetherRealm Studios.