All News radio in a small market

[KilowattKat]

From Radio Insight ..

1450 WTSA/99.5 W258DW Brattleboro and “Penguin” simulcaster 106.5 W293AB Keene NH have flipped to All-News as “All News Radio“.

Community Media Launches Three New Brands In Brattleboro/Keene

Jared Goodell's Community Media Inc. has closed on its $850,000 purchase of four stations and two translators in the Brattleboro

radioinsight.com

They are doing an all news format with content from iHeart 24/7 news (News, Sports, Entertainment news, Business and Consumer report, etc.). Along with pre recorded local news. Weather on the :10's. They run a single commercial spot or two between each segment.

I'm wondering if Premiere is offering this as a 24/7 format looking to line up affiliates, or if this is a creation of the local broadcaster. We'll have to see if this is successful, and a new format option for mid size and small markets.

The website and listen live are in the link in the first paragraph.

 

[Larry]

I think this is great news. When people talk about Spotify and other music services, I think that all news (including local news) along with live talk and live sports talk is the programming people can’t get elsewhere.

 

[TheBigA]

I'm wondering if Premiere is offering this as a 24/7 format looking to line up affiliates,

I'm not aware that it's a continuous format, just hourly news.

It sounds like they're stringing together a series of self-hosted national reports, interspersed with brief local news & weather.

I think that all news (including local news) along with live talk and live sports talk is the programming people can’t get elsewhere.

Maybe. Not on music services, because they are, by definition, music services. But you can hear news, talk, and sports on other streaming services and satellite.

 

[mightynine]

There is a 24/7 News live channel on iHeart, but to my knowledge, there's no official service being offered to affiliates.

iHeartRadio 24/7 News | iHeart

24/7 News Headlines from iHeartRadio

www.iheart.com

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Associated Press Radio | iHeart

Advancing the Power of Facts

www.iheart.com

There’s also this one AP News that has an all news feed for radio apps. But the interesting part is that the Keene, NH station is one of the smallest radio stations to run an all-news format. It’s rare to hear smaller markets run all news radio.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Pittsburgh was likely the smallest market with an all-news station for years until KQV finally gave up, and it's a much bigger market than any of those places. I'm assuming that most of the content is national which makes me wonder just how successful it will be. This concept didn't work out for CNN among others.

 

[kevtronics]

In the '90s, when CNN was still mostly news programming, there were small AM news stations whose programming consisted largely of a CNN simulcast.

 

[michael hagerty]

There is a 24/7 News live channel on iHeart, but to my knowledge, there's no official service being offered to affiliates.

iHeartRadio 24/7 News | iHeart

24/7 News Headlines from iHeartRadio

www.iheart.com

That's a four-minute newscast that repeats until it's updated (24/7 News is an iHeart brand, not a description of the service). In 2013 and early 2014, I was one of the guys who did that. It would update every three hours. Maybe iHeart still updates it that often, maybe not.

 

[tvnut]

Pittsburgh was likely the smallest market with an all-news station for years until KQV finally gave up, and it's a much bigger market than any of those places. I'm assuming that most of the content is national which makes me wonder just how successful it will be. This concept didn't work out for CNN among others.

NBC’s News and Information Service was the best of the lot and it couldn’t make it. And that was 50 years ago.

 

[ted chittenden]

The thing about the all news format, whoever does it, is that it is a great deal more expensive to produce than any other format. Consequently, unless the station in question is able to get a national news service from either the Internet or via satellite, it's not going to go anywhere with such a format.

 

[mightynine]

That's a four-minute newscast that repeats until it's updated (24/7 News is an iHeart brand, not a description of the service). In 2013 and early 2014, I was one of the guys who did that. It would update every three hours. Maybe iHeart still updates it that often, maybe not.

It's more than just the newscast now - they use the other daily features from 24/7 News (health, politics, sports, etc.) to fill out the time. It's not 15 minutes giving you the world, but it's close - and if you were to add some commercial breaks and room for the market's traffic and weather, you could get there.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

The thing about the all news format, whoever does it, is that it is a great deal more expensive to produce than any other format. Consequently, unless the station in question is able to get a national news service from either the Internet or via satellite, it's not going to go anywhere with such a format.

True and the all news format on OTA mainly works in major radio markets like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington DC. Note this format too has to watch out for political interference like whenever chairman Carr rants about going after a local radio stations license like Audacy own station KCBS/KFRC-FM faced when the FCC went after them over ICE coverage.

 

[Gregg.]

It's more than just the newscast now - they use the other daily features from 24/7 News (health, politics, sports, etc.) to fill out the time. It's not 15 minutes giving you the world, but it's close - and if you were to add some commercial breaks and room for the market's traffic and weather, you could get there.

I think mightynine is right. iHeart's 24/7 offers a handful of daily features that can be used to round out the format. A station could fill up a half-hour with breaks for commercials, local news and sports. And a weather update every ten minutes.

In Dover NH, for many years, 1270 WTSN did something similar for its morning drive program. It was an affiliate of both CBS and AP. So it aired those network's newscasts. CBS was heard live on the hour and AP hourly news was recorded and played back on the half hour. Between them, there were enough features to pad out an hour, along with weather every ten minutes. The newscaster on WTSN would do local news at :07 and :37. Local NH and Boston sports were heard at :15 and :45. Maybe the station also got business reports at :25 and :55 from someone like the Wall Street Journal.

Not only did WTSN do this on weekdays but on weekends as well. I haven't been there for a few years so I don't know if the station continues to do this.

 

[michael hagerty]

Nice to hear they’ve upgraded.

 

[K.M. Richards]

NBC’s News and Information Service was the best of the lot and it couldn’t make it. And that was 50 years ago.

The problem NIS had was not the quality of the programming nor was it unprofitable for the affiliates. I came in as PD when the affiliate in Oxnard-Ventura CA went back to music after NBC pulled the plug, and as that is my hometown market I heard how it sounded on that station. I also was able to see the accounts receivable billing for the NIS years in order to set a reasonable target for the new A/C format.

I had a few thoughts about NIS back then, and in reading about it in Broadcasting (thank you again, @davideduardo) I am more convinced of what I believe to have been their two real problems. And it all had to do with marketing to potential affiliates.

1. They lost several opportunities to sign major market affiliates where they did not own stations, by insisting on a "pay-for-play" model even in the top 50 markets. For example, Earle C. Anthony, who at the time owned 50,000 watt KFI here in Los Angeles (which was an NBC affiliate at the time) basically told the network he wasn't about to pay for the service, because he would still have personnel expenses -- which, in retrospect, probably would have been much higher than what he was paying his on-air talent for the music format -- and once he slammed the door no one else in market #2 was going to consider NIS either, because if Anthony had issues with it, they expected they would have similar issues.

2. Except for WRC in Washington DC, they put NIS on their FMs in their O&O markets, and then promoted it with the slogan "now there's an all-news station on FM!" ... to which the typical listener reaction was "why?". This was a considerable disadvantage because in those markets they already faced formidable competition from established stations on AM: WCBS and WINS in NYC, WIND in Chicago, KCBS (and to a degree KGO) in San Francisco. It was even worse for them in that last market because FM was slower to catch on there due to the topography's effect on reception. But they also misjudged the audience beginning to migrate to FM for music formats. Imagine Imus and the 660 format moving to 97.1 (probably with several months of simulcasting before NIS launched) and then take a guess at how much longer that format would have lasted. But the net effect in the industry was "why won't NBC commit its AM stations to this new network if they think it's so great?" and that resulted in countless stations refusing to even consider the idea.

So NIS ended up with FMs in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, no affiliate in Los Angeles (the station I ended up programming and an AM in Palm Springs were the two closest to L.A., and neither of us put a signal into that market), and an affiliate roster comprised of smaller market AM stations who were losing audience because the music audience was moving to FM. There were a few exceptions, like WSOC in Charlotte and WRR in Dallas, but the station list didn't exactly inspire confidence on Madison Avenue.

Courtesy (again) of David's archives, here is part of an ad NBC took out in Broadcasting in 1976 showing the station roster for NIS:

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Magazines/Archive-BC-IDX/76-OCR/1976-06-21-BC-OCR-Page-0050.pdf

Mostly medium and small market stations. NBC blew it because they didn't promote it to stations in a way that made sense. All they did was create an impression that they didn't care enough to commit their own AM stations and they didn't care enough about the largest markets to have an affiliate compensation plan for those major markets.

 

[ted chittenden]

The problem NIS had was not the quality of the programming nor was it unprofitable for the affiliates. I came in as PD when the affiliate in Oxnard-Ventura CA went back to music after NBC pulled the plug, and as that is my hometown market I heard how it sounded on that station. I also was able to see the accounts receivable billing for the NIS years in order to set a reasonable target for the new A/C format.

I had a few thoughts about NIS back then, and in reading about it in Broadcasting (thank you again, @davideduardo) I am more convinced of what I believe to have been their two real problems. And it all had to do with marketing to potential affiliates.

1. They lost several opportunities to sign major market affiliates where they did not own stations, by insisting on a "pay-for-play" model even in the top 50 markets. For example, Earle C. Anthony, who at the time owned 50,000 watt KFI here in Los Angeles (which was an NBC affiliate at the time) basically told the network he wasn't about to pay for the service, because he would still have personnel expenses -- which, in retrospect, probably would have been much higher than what he was paying his on-air talent for the music format -- and once he slammed the door no one else in market #2 was going to consider NIS either, because if Anthony had issues with it, they expected they would have similar issues.

2. Except for WRC in Washington DC, they put NIS on their FMs in their O&O markets, and then promoted it with the slogan "now there's an all-news station on FM!" ... to which the typical listener reaction was "why?". This was a considerable disadvantage because in those markets they already faced formidable competition from established stations on AM: WCBS and WINS in NYC, WIND in Chicago, KCBS (and to a degree KGO) in San Francisco. It was even worse for them in that last market because FM was slower to catch on there due to the topography's effect on reception. But they also misjudged the audience beginning to migrate to FM for music formats. Imagine Imus and the 660 format moving to 97.1 (probably with several months of simulcasting before NIS launched) and then take a guess at how much longer that format would have lasted. But the net effect in the industry was "why won't NBC commit its AM stations to this new network if they think it's so great?" and that resulted in countless stations refusing to even consider the idea.

So NIS ended up with FMs in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, no affiliate in Los Angeles (the station I ended up programming and an AM in Palm Springs were the two closest to L.A., and neither of us put a signal into that market), and an affiliate roster comprised of smaller market AM stations who were losing audience because the music audience was moving to FM. There were a few exceptions, like WSOC in Charlotte and WRR in Dallas, but the station list didn't exactly inspire confidence on Madison Avenue.

Courtesy (again) of David's archives, here is part of an ad NBC took out in Broadcasting in 1976 showing the station roster for NIS:

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Magazines/Archive-BC-IDX/76-OCR/1976-06-21-BC-OCR-Page-0050.pdf

Mostly medium and small market stations. NBC blew it because they didn't promote it to stations in a way that made sense. All they did was create an impression that they didn't care enough to commit their own AM stations and they didn't care enough about the largest markets to have an affiliate compensation plan for those major markets.

In Phoenix, NIS was carried on KRUX, which was one of the city's two long-running AM top-40 stations. (While KUPD (1060 kHz) did top 40, it didn't begin its involvement in the format until late 1971 or early 1972.) I was a 12- and 13-year-old kid when I heard it and I loved listening to it.

One thing that surprised me (until now) was when my mom and the kids traveled to San Francisco in the summer of 1976 to visit relatives on both sides of the family, was the appearance of NIS on FM there. (I believe the frequency was 103.7 mHz.) I was in-between radios then and I wasn't able to listen long enough on the borrowed stereo (I was listening to it while everybody else had gone to the grocery store) to hear a top-of-the hour ID. But I thought of how odd that station was on FM. I mean with the old phone lines that couldn't handle clear, let-alone stereo, reception, but there it was. Like Monitor, I was sad to see it go when NBC pulled the plug.