50th Anniversary: Radio Network Hourly Newscasts

[actioncentral]

On January 14th, 1957, NBC inaugurated hourly TOH newscasts seven days a week, from 7 AM to 11 PM.
Newscasts ran 5 minutes in length.
Among the NBC staffers reporting the news were: Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Ben Grauer, Ray Scherer, Joseph C. Harsch and Frank Blair, according to an article written by Val Adams from the NY Times of November 14, 1956.
Today, CBS, ABC, CNN, AP are among those who continue this service -- now 24/7.
The newscasts currently provided by NBC and WW1 are weekday hourly one-minute updates, 6AM-10PM ET.
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[Ultimajock]

On January 14th, 1957, NBC inaugurated hourly TOH newscasts seven days a week, from 7 AM to 11 PM.
Newscasts ran 5 minutes in length.

...which, in part, prompted Edward R. Murrow to make the speech depicted at the beginning of GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK. In one sentence, he didn't like it...

 

[fred flintstone]

Monitor had been running hourly newscasts on weekends since June, 1955.
Monday through Friday newscasts were called NBC News on the Hour.
Weekend newscasts were called Monitor News.

The weekday newscasts followed NBC canceling the last of its golden age network radio shows.

 

[actioncentral]

My omission of FOX wasn't intentional. Also, I believe Salem, USARadio has newscasts 24/7. Air America has TOHs when it is distributing its talkers. What about Information Radio News -- not to be confused with ABC Information Network.
Yes, NBC's Monitor had TOH newscasts which premiered before NBC Radio News on the Hour. But the service that started 50 years ago was the pioneer in full network
news coverage. Hopefully NBC will get back to full radio news service when its 20 year license agreement with WW1 ends later this year and when its agreement with WW1 over NBC News Radio ends.
action central (GEC)

 

[fred flintstone]

Hopefully NBC will get back to full radio news service when its 20 year license agreement with WW1 ends later this year and when its agreement with WW1 over NBC News Radio ends.
action central (GEC)

Amen.
However, I doubt it will be the same as it was.
NBC, unique among the major network, had one news division providing news programs for the TV network, radio network (including at one point NIS) and for television and radio owned and operated stations. Radio was not a step-child.
If GE reclaims NBC Radio, it will probably become another step-child (with access to audio from network TV news), It might operate under MSNBC but will probably be a separate operation (like CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox radio).
That said, there is even less reason for the continued existence of TOH network news on radio than for evening network news on TV.

 

[fred flintstone]

Hey, AC (or anyone else who remembers this)...

I've been trying to find and verify something I once read without success.

I recall reading that ABC (then briefly calling itself ARN, I think) beat NBC to the punch with hourly news.
Sometime around 1955, 56 or 57, ABC canceled all their old time radio shows - except for The Breakfast Club, which still had an audience and made money. They tried to revive network radio by putting on a schedule with five or six Breakfast Club clones, talk-variety shows all broadcast live and hosted by (among others) Merv Griffin and WABC's Herb Oscar Anderson. The experiment lasted six months or so. But part of it was these shows were 55 minutes long with a five minute newscast "live at 55." The live at 55 came from ABC emphasizing the fact that all these shows were live (and live at 55 was at catchy phrase). The variety shows disappeared (except the Breakfast Club) but news at 55 remained.

Do you remember anything about any of this?

 

[ercjncpr]

Hey, AC (or anyone else who remembers this)...

I've been trying to find and verify something I once read without success.

I recall reading that ABC (then briefly calling itself ARN, I think) beat NBC to the punch with hourly news.
Sometime around 1955, 56 or 57, ABC canceled all their old time radio shows - except for The Breakfast Club, which still had an audience and made money. They tried to revive network radio by putting on a schedule with five or six Breakfast Club clones, talk-variety shows all broadcast live and hosted by (among others) Merv Griffin and WABC's Herb Oscar Anderson. The experiment lasted six months or so. But part of it was these shows were 55 minutes long with a five minute newscast "live at 55." The live at 55 came from ABC emphasizing the fact that all these shows were live (and live at 55 was at catchy phrase). The variety shows disappeared (except the Breakfast Club) but news at 55 remained.

Do you remember anything about any of this?

I think what you are remembering was something called "Flair", which was really more like Monitor than like The Breakfast Club. Flair ran sometime in the early 1960s and like you said , it was brief. Then "Flair Reports" replaced it ,that was a series of throughout-the-day five minute features similar to what the other nets were already doing. ABC even tried an early revival of radio drama called Theatre Five (because it ran five days a week)...this lasted about a year 1964-65. For better of worse, Paul Harvey remains the last holdout of old-style news programming

 

[actioncentral]

ABC's ABN debuted in January 1958. It was short-lived.
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[fred flintstone]

Thanks, guys. I do recall Flair. It came along after the variety shows I described.
I do recall that ABC Radio called itself something other than ABC Radio at that point. And 1958 would have been after NBC started News on the hour.

The station where I later worked was just starting to move to a format (rather than block programming) and Top 40 around 1955. They were owned by ABC and all these attempts by New York to revive network radio with variety shows and Flair just kept getting in the way. As did the Breakfast Club itself and the evening news block all the way to the four network split in 1968 (by which time they had lost the Top 40 race to two other stations and had changed formats).