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News five minutes early?

V

vchimpanzee

It's understandable when a radio station is streaming for the news at the top of the hour to be late. But just now it was five minutes early.

Well, now it's already over and KTUC is back to the music.
 
For many years, some of the news networks have offered early feeds. I can't say for sure if the feeds at the top of the hour are live on the satellite, but stations are not obligated to carry the newscast exactly at the top of the hour.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
For many years, some of the news networks have offered early feeds.
Click to expand...

ABC News did it by design because WABC specifically asked for it. They promoted it as "news five minutes sooner."

But it also allowed stations to record it and run it at their convenience, rather than straight up at the top of the hour.
 
In the 1970s and 80s (and maybe later), NBC provided a five-minute feed at :54:30, which would replay at :00. At KOLO in Reno, we recorded the :54:30 and stopped sweating hitting the top of the hour exactly. The cart was ready at :00, but if we were a few seconds late, it was fine.
 
Actually, I misremembered (it’s only been 41 years). The NBC feed was at :54:00. Five minutes. We recorded it on a 5.5 minute cart, so we could be up to 30 seconds early hitting the news or however late we needed to be.
 
TheBigA said:
ABC News did it by design because WABC specifically asked for it. They promoted it as "news five minutes sooner."

But it also allowed stations to record it and run it at their convenience, rather than straight up at the top of the hour.
Click to expand...
From what I remember, it was the FCC that required ABC to offer all four of its networks on one feed in order to comply with the "one network, one feed" rule. Contemporary at :55, Information at :00, Entertainment at :30, and FM at :15. It never made sense to me, since ABC had multiple affiliates in some markets after 1967, although they were connected to the same network feed.
 
KeithE4 said:
From what I remember, it was the FCC that required ABC to offer all four of its networks on one feed
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It may have been that ABC asked for an exemption from the network rule because all networks were fed on the same network phone line. That remained the case when they added two more networks (Rock and Direction), and even when they made the transition to satellite in 1983. All six network news casts were fed on the same satellite channel. This was also true for NBC with The Source. Both networks had multiple satellite channels available, but they primarily used the one.
 
I worked at one particular station in the early 1990s where the board ops (remember them?) on the AM side, which was a news/talk ABC affiliate, had to record the ABC News satellite feed at I believe :55, then they had 1 minute to rewind and cue it up for playback at the TOH. Occasionally if they forgot, some board ops would re-run the previous hours' recorded news, while others would just air the TOH news direct from the satellite feed. Eventually they got in trouble from station management, as they explained they were contracted to carry the news programming that was fed at :55, but not the one of equal length that ran at TOH. From what I recall, the :55 and TOH news had different intros, with the one at :55 always starting with "Direct from ABC News...."
 
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I do afternoons in a Laramie, WY station that runs ABC news at 05 to 06 after the hour. why? All of our competitors... both Townsquare and the lawyers stations are running news and/or weather or commercials at TOH... were not. We do the news and then get right back to the music. We do commercials at 20 35 and 50.

We have the highest time spent listening of any station in our home county by double or triple in most cases.
 
Mikey Radio said:
From what I recall, the :55 and TOH news had different intros, with the one at :55 always starting with "Direct from ABC News...."
Click to expand...

You're correct that they had different intros, because they were completely different newscasts, with different scripts and different anchors. Top of the Hour always began with the ABC News theme. The :55 didn't. These were meant to serve different audiences and had their own affiliation deals.
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
I do afternoons in a Laramie, WY station that runs ABC news at 05 to 06 after the hour. why? All of our competitors... both Townsquare and the lawyers stations are running news and/or weather or commercials at TOH... were not. We do the news and then get right back to the music. We do commercials at 20 35 and 50.

We have the highest time spent listening of any station in our home county by double or triple in most cases.
Click to expand...
This is why Bill Drake cooked up "20/20 News" at KHJ. KFWB was doing news at the top, KRLA at :55.
 
TheBigA said:
ABC News did it by design because WABC specifically asked for it. They promoted it as "news five minutes sooner."

But it also allowed stations to record it and run it at their convenience, rather than straight up at the top of the hour.
Click to expand...
ABC was using one network feed for all 4 of their networks, so they couldn't have 2 networks running simultaneously. It was always :00 Information :15, FM :30 Entertainment (with a 1 minute version at :27 as I recall), Contemprary 1 minute headlines at 50:30 and Contemporary at 54:30.
 
gr8oldies said:
ABC was using one network feed for all 4 of their networks, so they couldn't have 2 networks running simultaneously.
Click to expand...

It was one 5khz phone line, the old NBC Blue network. That opened the door for other networks to multi-cast using the same line. Mutual did that with their Mutual Black Network.

Things became more complicated when they got satellite in 1982. By then, the FCC was pre-occupied.
 
TheBigA said:
It was one 5khz phone line, the old NBC Blue network. That opened the door for other networks to multi-cast using the same line. Mutual did that with their Mutual Black Network.

Things became more complicated when they got satellite in 1982. By then, the FCC was pre-occupied.
Click to expand...
There was also Mutual Progressive, which also ran at :55 and was Mutual's answer to American Contemporary. To top that off, sometimes all the network programming was pre-empted by sports.
 
gr8oldies said:
There was also Mutual Progressive, which also ran at :55 and was Mutual's answer to American Contemporary. To top that off, sometimes all the network programming was pre-empted by sports.
Click to expand...

Mutual was the first to go on satellite, and when it did, the live sports moved to a separate channel.
 
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