24 hour newsroom

[Rick Rose 2.0]

At 12:50 on Saturday AM WSB broke into Savage to report that Obama chose Biden as his running mate yet no tv station has mentioned it yet. I /7 ess having a 24/7 radio newsroom is sweet.

 

[TheRealOtherNeil]

The cable news stations all had wall-to-wall coverage of the Biden announcement at around 11:50 pm. DAVE-FM played "Homeless Joe" and True Oldies played "Hey Joe" but I think that was coincidence.

 

[Biz Listener]

In this day and age, is there anyone out there who cares about whether or not a station gets a "scoop"?

Didn't that go out with radio reporters who'd say "Flash! This reporter just discovered that Barack Obama has named his running mate!"?

 

[knowsnews1]

Having information on the air quickly is different than getting a "scoop."

When something of importance is happening, and you want to find out more, there is nothing more frustrating than flipping from station to station and hearing the same old tripe.

 

[Biz Listener]

Having information on the air quickly is different than getting a "scoop."

When something of importance is happening, and you want to find out more, there is nothing more frustrating than flipping from station to station and hearing the same old tripe.

When looking for fast reporting of up-to-the-minute, breaking news, why would anyone in the 21st century turn to the radio? The medium for late-breaking news is the Internet.

Radio is the medium of choice for local information that's important for people listening to the radio who have no access to the internet, like motorists. If there's an accident on I-75 that's tying up traffic, it's radio's job to report it. If there's a fire in a neighborhood that drivers should avoid, that's radio's job to report.

When a political candidate finally reveals who his running mate will be as part of an election campaign that has been running for months, and that no one can do anything about until election day several months in the future, radio is not the medium to expect to have the scoop. It was different when people wanted to know who FDR picked as his running mate in 1932. It was the radio or the newspapers. Those were the only two media for late breaking news.

And, for what it's worth, the word that describes being the first to inform people of late-breaking news is a "scoop".

 

[RoddyFreeman]

When looking for fast reporting of up-to-the-minute, breaking news, why would anyone in the 21st century turn to the radio? The medium for late-breaking news is the Internet.

If you're saying that more people use the Internet to get breaking news than listen to the radio, please provide some research to show us. I would bet that's not the case.

 

[OutOfTheBiz]

When looking for fast reporting of up-to-the-minute, breaking news, why would anyone in the 21st century turn to the radio? The medium for late-breaking news is the Internet.

If you're saying that more people use the Internet to get breaking news than listen to the radio, please provide some research to show us. I would bet that's not the case.

If people are turning to radio for breaking news in 2008 - they are sorely disappointed considering that the vast majority of radio stations in America are manned by computers with no capable on-air talent available to deliver the "breaking news." Who is going to deliver it - the minimum wage board-ops who are babysitting 3, 4,5 stations at one time? - The engineer who is on call remotely monitoring stations 20 minutes away in a locked building?

I would love to see a statistic of how many radio stations actually have an employee on their payroll whose job title is "News Director." I would bet it's probably in the single-digits percentage wise.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

I agree with you that it's sad how news has almost disappeared from FM except in the morning. You can listen to CHR airchecks from the 80's, and stations did news in afternoon drive; from the 60's and AM top-40 stations had news at night.

But I think people are trained to head right to news and news/talk stations when breaking news is happening. If I'm listening to music and want to know what's going on, I punch up WSB. If I'm at home, I usually go to CNN or Fox News Channel. At times, I do go to CNN.com or WSBTV.com. And my clock radio is set to WSB because I want to know what happened overnight. The only drawback is when I forget to turn the alarm off on Friday night, that damn Lawn & Garden Show wakes me up.

 

[Biz Listener]

When looking for fast reporting of up-to-the-minute, breaking news, why would anyone in the 21st century turn to the radio? The medium for late-breaking news is the Internet.

If you're saying that more people use the Internet to get breaking news than listen to the radio, please provide some research to show us. I would bet that's not the case.

Look. Reality is what it is. Radio stations didn't drop their news operations for no reason. News reports on radio cost money to produce, and resulted in music fans hitting the buttons for other stations. If you want to see research to prove it, look it up yourself. It is what it is and if you can't see reality with your own two eyeballs, how is seeing some research going to change your mind?

But I think people are trained to head right to news and news/talk stations when breaking news is happening.

Really? Got any research to prove it?

 

[rip-n-read]

Up until about the 1980's (and there are still a few around) it was fairly common for music stations in all size markets to have actual news departments. Not just news directors, but reporters out in the field. One notable example was WNOE/New Orleans, which had an award-winning news department with both news and sports staff.

Kudos to WSB for breaking in with the Biden story. They're a news station and that's what they are supposed to do, no matter if it is a scoop or not. I often find myself out on the road, wanting to hear about some breaking news story, and all I can find on the AM dial is, "Liberals are evil, it's all their fault, blah blah blah......"

 

[jal41]

Q102 in Rome does local news at noon and in the afternoons...of course that is small town radio.

Cox even programmed hourly news updates on one of their standalone FM music stations (96.7 The Coast in Norwalk, CT). They won't do that in Atlanta because of WSB-AM.

WSB-AM did what they are suppost to do - cut in at midnight with breaking news. WSB-AM is the flagship of the CNN radio network, so they frequently broadcast CNN audio of breaking news.

If cost were not an issue...WSB-AM would have been all-news in 1991. It is expensive to run an all-news station.

On a side note - I wonder what would happen if there were hourly news updates on Q100, 95.5 The Beat, Star 94, V-103, and other stations targeting a younger audience. Would younger people be more informed...or would they hit the dial if it had nothing to do with celebrities.

 

[Knowsnews2]

Having information on the air quickly is different than getting a "scoop."

When something of importance is happening, and you want to find out more, there is nothing more frustrating than flipping from station to station and hearing the same old tripe.

When looking for fast reporting of up-to-the-minute, breaking news, why would anyone in the 21st century turn to the radio? The medium for late-breaking news is the Internet.

Radio is the medium of choice for local information that's important for people listening to the radio who have no access to the internet, like motorists. If there's an accident on I-75 that's tying up traffic, it's radio's job to report it. If there's a fire in a neighborhood that drivers should avoid, that's radio's job to report.

When a political candidate finally reveals who his running mate will be as part of an election campaign that has been running for months, and that no one can do anything about until election day several months in the future, radio is not the medium to expect to have the scoop. It was different when people wanted to know who FDR picked as his running mate in 1932. It was the radio or the newspapers. Those were the only two media for late breaking news.

And, for what it's worth, the word that describes being the first to inform people of late-breaking news is a "scoop".

I'm sure all those people driving to work in the morning, or all of those who are on the highways in the early morning hours have internet in their cars. I can see them all pulling over to the shoulder to fire up the Iphones and check out the latest news. Or, perhaps, they can turn on the radio. What a novel concept.

 

[Biz Listener]

Having information on the air quickly is different than getting a "scoop."

When something of importance is happening, and you want to find out more, there is nothing more frustrating than flipping from station to station and hearing the same old tripe.

When looking for fast reporting of up-to-the-minute, breaking news, why would anyone in the 21st century turn to the radio? The medium for late-breaking news is the Internet.

Radio is the medium of choice for local information that's important for people listening to the radio who have no access to the internet, like motorists. If there's an accident on I-75 that's tying up traffic, it's radio's job to report it. If there's a fire in a neighborhood that drivers should avoid, that's radio's job to report.

When a political candidate finally reveals who his running mate will be as part of an election campaign that has been running for months, and that no one can do anything about until election day several months in the future, radio is not the medium to expect to have the scoop. It was different when people wanted to know who FDR picked as his running mate in 1932. It was the radio or the newspapers. Those were the only two media for late breaking news.

And, for what it's worth, the word that describes being the first to inform people of late-breaking news is a "scoop".

I'm sure all those people driving to work in the morning, or all of those who are on the highways in the early morning hours have internet in their cars. I can see them all pulling over to the shoulder to fire up the Iphones and check out the latest news. Or, perhaps, they can turn on the radio. What a novel concept.

Read what I wrote, and what you quoted. Did I not say that in the car if they wanted news that's relevant while commuting, like traffic reports, they'd expect them on the radio? And read what others wrote. No one expects to be able to simply turn the radio on to hear what they want to hear. They have to turn the radio on, and then tune it to a particular station. No one in this day and age expects all stations to have a newscast. They expect to have some station buttons set to receive nothing but music and entertainment, and other buttons set to receive nothing but news, etc. I don't see anyone driving down the road with the radio turned off suddenly overwhelmed with curiosity over who Obama picked as his running mate turning on his car radio to any random station expecting to hear a newscast.

Now, maybe you're a universe of one whose demand for instant gratification requires being able to hear the news you're suddenly curious about the very instant that curiosity overwhelms you. Most people who become curious about something wait until the get to where they are going in their cars, then turn to alternative media for the news. Unless, of course, they're curious about what is causing a traffic jam.

On a side note - I wonder what would happen if there were hourly news updates on Q100, 95.5 The Beat, Star 94, V-103, and other stations targeting a younger audience. Would younger people be more informed...or would they hit the dial if it had nothing to do with celebrities.

They'd hit the dial even if it wasn't about celebrities. Why do you think that even back in the olden days when music format stations did have 5 minutes newscasts every half hour they'd schedule them at :24 and :55 after the hour, or some other off-beat time? Thirty years ago stations programmers knew that the newscast chased away listeners, so they'd schedule them to take advantage of when their competitors would chase the listeners back.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

Most people who become curious about something wait until the get to where they are going in their cars, then turn to alternative media for the news.

Source?

 

[Biz Listener]

Most people who become curious about something wait until the get to where they are going in their cars, then turn to alternative media for the news.

Source?

Artesian wells.