Are the various ABC Radio news networks still in business. So many of the long time affiliates now seem to be Fox Radio? Just wondering...
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ABC Radio Networks
- Thread starter ricksegers
- Start date
only Information and Entertainment remain as separate newscast services. Rock, Contemporary, FM and Direction have been discontinued. I don't think they have near the amount of affiliated they used to have. Lot of affiliates left them after Paul Harvey died. A very sad end to a once excellent radio network.
This is NIGHTline.....I'm Ted KOPpel....
I'll hear that music till the day I die.
I'll hear that music till the day I die.
In its heyday, one of the big boys in
radio networks was Mutual. They had a strong business going at one time...with tons of highly-popular radio dramas, newscasters etc. That was pre-tv...whose emerging strengths turned Mutual into pretty much a lower tierd radio news network. Always enjoyed it though.
radio networks was Mutual. They had a strong business going at one time...with tons of highly-popular radio dramas, newscasters etc. That was pre-tv...whose emerging strengths turned Mutual into pretty much a lower tierd radio news network. Always enjoyed it though.
You saw a lot of the CC Newstalkers switch from ABC News to Fox News when it launched. Generally speaking, pre-FNR, it was a safe bet if you had a CC Newstalk, it was an ABC News affil. CC basically teamed up with Fox to really "amp up" the FNR news service from one-minute updates (weren't they thru Westwood One at one point?) to a full-time service with TOH 5-min newscasts, shorter updates at other parts of the hour, urgents, actuality feeds, etc. Makes a lot of sense given the number of conservative Newstalkers that CC has with the "holy trinity" on them during the day.
Personally, I still remember the days of NBC News coming down GNN... and Mutual back in the day. I'm too young to be this old.
Personally, I still remember the days of NBC News coming down GNN... and Mutual back in the day. I'm too young to be this old.
JackieSteele said:.....
Personally, I still remember the days of NBC News coming down GNN... and Mutual back in the day. I'm too young to be this old.
Go back a little further. UPI news being fed down the GN feed. I love the trash can sounder that GN had forever. Does anybody have a clean copy of that? I know there is a version on the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame website, but last time I listened to it, it was water marked.
K
kturnerga
Guest
Mr. Braswell
Take that GN trashcan sounder and throw it in John Long's lap at the GRHOF. He'd love it.
I remember when 10PM would hit back in the early Seventies and the synthesized saxophone sounder for "American Contemporary Radio" hit. I never heard it since the late Seventies until listening to WABC airchecks about ten years back. Some versions have what sounds like an old dot matrix printer going crazy. There are recordings of the phaseout of the pre-1968 ABC tone.
Most small-market stations used Mutual news, didn't they? The sound quality wasn't the greatest and it sounded frightening to me as a kid- along with the announcer. I still remember the "lid-dup" tone at commercial break.
Take that GN trashcan sounder and throw it in John Long's lap at the GRHOF. He'd love it.
I remember when 10PM would hit back in the early Seventies and the synthesized saxophone sounder for "American Contemporary Radio" hit. I never heard it since the late Seventies until listening to WABC airchecks about ten years back. Some versions have what sounds like an old dot matrix printer going crazy. There are recordings of the phaseout of the pre-1968 ABC tone.
Most small-market stations used Mutual news, didn't they? The sound quality wasn't the greatest and it sounded frightening to me as a kid- along with the announcer. I still remember the "lid-dup" tone at commercial break.
Kturnerga,
Funny you mentioned Mutual's sounder (kind of a harsh, synthesized sound IIRC) being frightening to a kid. I remember the same feeling hearing the newscasts on WULA in Eufaula, AL. Right about the time I started working there, as a teen, we got a satellite dish to receive the Mutual feed from the Westar 4 satellite. It was about that time that they changed their opener to use more of a "tympani/symphonic" sound... so I wasn't quite as shell-shocked when I backtimed into the newscasts at the top of the hour.
That's just one of the sounds that floods my memory. The old-style AP machine right outside the control room (I despised the dot-matrix printer the AP replaced it with about 2 years after I started working there); the sound of the FM's automation reels rewinding when you were changing tapes; oh, and speaking of networks, we still had Alanet news from Montgomery brought in by EQ'd line to run at the bottom of the hour. They had a closed-circuit countdown that ran 1 minute before each newscast. Standard thing, really, tones at 1 min, 45 sec, 30 sec, 15 sec, and short bursts for 10-9-8-7-6-5. Only thing was, whoever carted up this countdown at the network was not well schooled in the art of bulk-erasing a cart, so you got the "whoosh, whoosh" sound of an improperly erased cartridge about every second or so. Top quality stuff for a statewide network of about 50-60 stations.
I'm with JackieSteele, I'm too young to be this old!
TDO
Funny you mentioned Mutual's sounder (kind of a harsh, synthesized sound IIRC) being frightening to a kid. I remember the same feeling hearing the newscasts on WULA in Eufaula, AL. Right about the time I started working there, as a teen, we got a satellite dish to receive the Mutual feed from the Westar 4 satellite. It was about that time that they changed their opener to use more of a "tympani/symphonic" sound... so I wasn't quite as shell-shocked when I backtimed into the newscasts at the top of the hour.
That's just one of the sounds that floods my memory. The old-style AP machine right outside the control room (I despised the dot-matrix printer the AP replaced it with about 2 years after I started working there); the sound of the FM's automation reels rewinding when you were changing tapes; oh, and speaking of networks, we still had Alanet news from Montgomery brought in by EQ'd line to run at the bottom of the hour. They had a closed-circuit countdown that ran 1 minute before each newscast. Standard thing, really, tones at 1 min, 45 sec, 30 sec, 15 sec, and short bursts for 10-9-8-7-6-5. Only thing was, whoever carted up this countdown at the network was not well schooled in the art of bulk-erasing a cart, so you got the "whoosh, whoosh" sound of an improperly erased cartridge about every second or so. Top quality stuff for a statewide network of about 50-60 stations.
I'm with JackieSteele, I'm too young to be this old!
TDO
I remember thinking, even as a kid, that it was interesting that ABC News came down live at :55 instead of at the top of the hour. And man oh man, that awesome sounder!
Those of you who remember the "American Contemporary Network," may also remember anchor Mary Margaret Myers. Myers died recently in upstate New York after a long battle with cancer.
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