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G.N.N.- Georgia News Network

  • Thread starter Goodtimesandgreatoldies
  • Start date

G

Goodtimesandgreatoldies

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Does G.N.N. still come out of WGST and the building of death? I can`t imagine that Cheap Channel has a large budget for them. Any details would be welcomed. Wasn`t former WLKQ-Oldies Lake 102 afternoon guy Steve "push my button" Nichols working for them a few years ago? Is he still there? Thanks for any updates.......... By the waay, how many stations is G.N.N. carried on?
 
It's almost like night and day the quality from the old Georgia Radio News Service to today's Georgia News Network. I guess Clear Channel has had that effect on everything they have touched.
 
The worldwide broadcast facilities of GNN are slightly larger than a closet towards the end of the WGST newsroom. Yes, Steve Nichols was one of the anchors around 2003? 2004? A list of all the affiliates used to be on http://www.georgianewsnetwork.com/ but it appears that info has been removed. GNN is usually around 100 stations, but affiliates are not required to run all or any of the programming. Just the commercials.
 
It's been a few years since I've been in there, but from what I remember, "Slightly larger than a closet" isn't quite accurate... they're in a moderatley sized studio on the right-hand side of the GST newsroom (7th floor of the B.O.D.). There's the anchor/master control position, with a few spots across the desk for guest mics (presumably used mainly during production of the weekly 30-minute public affairs program "Georgia Focus." If memory serves, there's a window behind the MCO position that looks back into a production suite, but I don't think that's dedicated to GNN. Of course, pretty much every desk in GST's newsroom is set up to be used as a production site, with a mic, mixer, and other audio goodies. Matt Cook's office is next to the GNN world broadcast complex. On the opposite end of the newsroom is the GST news booth and MCO position/talk studio.
 
I just HAD to sign up and jump in on this one...GNN does still come out of CC/Atlanta, WGST is the flagship. The network is very much alive and well with 115 affiliates making it the 2nd largest state net in the nation (only Texas State Net has more affiliates). The weekend public affairs show, Georgia Focus, is heard on 85 stations throghout GA. Recently, GNN expanded into Talk by syndicating The Martha Zoller Show out of WDUN/Gainesville and more new programming is planned for 2009. I'm glad to see a post on GNN - Thanks!
 
It hasn't been a credible news organization since the days when Richard Warner was in charge. Once the ownership transfers began, the budgets started shrinking and the quality of staff began to decline. The last guy there had no budget, no authority, and was saddled with managing the Braves affiliates. Back in the 80's it was one of the best state networks in the country. Of course, back in the 80's radio was a different animal.
 
GNN's on-air product has been trimmed down a lot over the past 10-15 years... but it's pretty reflective of the entire industry.

Back in the day, their BOH newscast was five minutes long... 120 of news, 60 spot, 120 of news. Then it pared down to 120 of news, 60 spot, 60 of news. Now, it's just 120 of news and a 60 spot. They still provide more than a dozen zone forecasts from Weather Channel that are fed to affiliates after the TOH repeat of the BOH news, along with sportscasts, scoreboards, Georgia Farm Radio Networks, and other stuff. Plus Georgia Focus makes all of our lives easier. :D

To show a little of my broadcasting age, I remember when GNN carried NBC Radio News at TOH, and I spent many a morning rolling reel-to-reel on the 7:35 newsline closed circuit feed. Somewhere in the depths of my garage I still have an old thumbwheel demod that GNN used to come down on. I got one when they were turned into boat anchors following the switch to the Starguides. I also vaguely remember the old GNN sounder called "cloudburst" that included the end-of-newscast rollout with the James Earl Jones - type "This is GNN."

Good times. :)
 
GNN - like all of the national networks - has cut back on newscasts simply because stations have cut back on the amount of news they carry. Supply and demand. Many GNN affiliates still run the hourly newscasts and there are quite a few other products offered by GNN that are of value to affiliates; Weather Channel, GFRN and GNN OnDemand which allows affiliates to create or enhance their local newscasts by downloading audio cuts, newscasts, even copy. GNN also provides a lot of custom coverage to affiliates. Affiliates get much more personal attention from GNN than they do their national net and that makes a big difference.
 
In the 1980's, GRNS was staffed with great talent. Richard Warner, Kirk Dorn, Brad Nessler, and Steve Holman, Margaret Barker, Connie Cummings and Bill Edge to name but a very few. Affiliate correspondents were among the most best in the business. Among them were; Debbie Bolton, Bob Morgan, Mark Brannan (RIP), Ken Stanford, Eric Cravey, Lamar Raimey (RIP), and many, many more. Times changed and the needs of the affiliates changed but G-N-N managed to hang on to an impressive number of stations. It was and still is I believe, the largest state network other than Texas.
Matt Cook has done an incredible job as the keeper of the flame. For 28 years the G-N-N has kept Georgians informed and provided a valuable service to its affiliates. I'm proud to say I was lucky to play a small part of it.
 
Didn't Don Kennedy run the GNN network for several years before Jacor took over. Or am I mistaken.....was it Georgia Radio News when Don had it or Georgia News Network? Didn't Jacor take over the remnants of Don's network?
 
"Officer Don" Kennedy ran the competing, original Georgia Network. When Meredith Corp, (owners of WGST in 1980) decided to start a statewide news network,
they were compelled to call it something very different from Kennedy's GN. It was christened "Georgia Radio News Service," or GRNS until Georgia Network went dark
a few years later. Kennedy eventually gave his permission to rename GRNS the "Georgia Network." That evolved into what is today known as GNN. GRNS signed on
April 15, 1980. GRNS and GN competed fiercely, vying for affiliates and trying to be the first to break big stories. Some of the original GN talent was heard on GRNS
in later years, including but by no means limited to Larry Munson and David Hull.
 
fussbudget said:
GRNS signed on April 15, 1980. GRNS and GN competed fiercely, vying for affiliates and trying to be the first to break big stories. Some of the original GN talent was heard on GRNS in later years, including but by no means limited to Larry Munson and David Hull.
Click to expand...

THAT'S when it was at it's best. both networks in competition. I remember we couldn't sign up for GRNS in Vienna because the Rivers' stations in Cordele had them and their contract stipulated within a 15 mile radius of their tower. Vienna's tower was 13 miles away! So we had to sign on with the Georgia Network. Of course, this was also the time when WCEH in Hawkinsville had an actually full time news person, Tom Kirk, and radio stations took seriously the "service to the public" part.

My how times have changed.
 
The main thing that killed GN was not the competition, although that contributed. GN did not have the capitol to quickly move to satellite. Many affiliates were still being fed by phone line at GN long past the time GRNS was 100% satellite. Around 1981 or so Southern Bell/BellSouth dramatically raised rates for broadcast loop costs due to deregulation. Since GN had lines that went between LATAs (yeah, remember LATAs?) they also had to keep up broadcast loops through AT&T.

I forget the guys name that was working for GN to do the conversions to satellite, but I remember a couple of conversations about the huge cost of feeding the south Georgia stations.

I always liked GNs tin can sounder. When GRNS signed on GN switched to something they thought sounded more modern... it was actually just stupid and sounded really bad since it did not have a hard start point. Lots of stations used the tin can sounder on tape/cart with the station ID or time and the jock would fade in the network behind it. I even remember having GN feed the tin can sounder down the network so the cart version would match the broadcast... back in the day when you could tell the difference on AM.
 
Wow....I am impressed with the knowledge in this thread. You folks remember more than I do!

I left WSB AM in March, 1980 (my party was the night of a huge ice storm where our apartment complex burned), and signed on GRNS two weeks later. The Friday before, we did a dress rehearsal and forgot to start the first newscast on time.

The five years of competition with Wade at GN was the most fun I have ever had in business. With 23 years of perspective, I know that GRNS/Meredith had a big financial advantage that helped us compete against Don Kennedy. We fought for four minutes at the bottom of every hour, for advertisers and for every radio affiliate in the state. Indeed, I called Don after they signed off and asked his permission to use the name "Georgia Network."

Doug Walker in Rome, Ken Stanford in Gainesville, Cindi Williams in Macrae, Dennis Hayes in Macon, Ed Wright in Brunswick (...), Clarice Bowles in Thomson, Merritt Cowart in LaGrange, Jimmy Lee the farm guy...and our folks: Margaret Barker, Marjory Holder, Kirk and Pete, Mike Lawing (on Georgia Tonight, instead of "balderdash," it came out "bladderdash"). I met my wife Malenka there, who was my boss's assistant.

Our satellite guy was Carroll something or other. He made more money than I did. Our original sounder was created by a guy in Valdosta; I still have the master. "Cloudburst" was off a set of production music discs...I've tried to find it for years. We fed the Braves during the day the first year, which made us a lot of money but meant we had to pre-feed hours of newscasts. At one point, sitting in the studio, I forgot what we were doing and started clicking the buttons on the patch panel, bringing up all kinds of networks and feeds and transmitting it all to listeners of 150 Braves stations. Truman Conley at WWSA Savannah called the hotline and said "what the f*** are you DOING?"

And there was the year we got the rights to the UGA Sugar Bowl and gave it to our stations instead of the UGA stations. Nate Hirsch in Statesboro is broadcasting it illegally and the GM of my station WPTB across town calls, screaming and hysterical, and over the next hour, I figured out how to cut off Nate's feed. Couple of years later I'm in a small group at the GAB in Athens telling this story, about the "idiot in Statesboro who was carrying the game." You guessed it: the guy I'm telling the story to was Nate Hirsch.

I cared a lot about GRNS, probably took it WAY too seriously. Being an entrepreneur now, I realize how tragic it was for Don Kennedy to lose his company and how much of himself he had invested in it.

Yes, there's one sentiment on this thread that I agree with --- that radio before dereg was more compelling and served the public better than today.
 
I too would like to have a copy of Georgia Radio News Service's original sounder and would really like the tin can sounder that Don Kennedy's Georgia network used.
 
I'll work on converting the GRNS reel to reel tapes to MP3. Also have high quality copies of the ABC Info, Entertainment, Contemp and FM sounders (original and new) and the Eric Siday CBS package. Unfortunately I just discovered that my old Otari MX55 isn't working right. Anybody know of a place where I could get it repaired? (This is about like asking for someone to repair a wire recorded, I know...)
 
RichardWarner said:
I'll work on converting the GRNS reel to reel tapes to MP3. Also have high quality copies of the ABC Info, Entertainment, Contemp and FM sounders (original and new) and the Eric Siday CBS package. Unfortunately I just discovered that my old Otari MX55 isn't working right. Anybody know of a place where I could get it repaired? (This is about like asking for someone to repair a wire recorded, I know...)
Click to expand...

Which old networks have/had the "boo-doop" and "chirp" sounders?
 
jabba17 said:
RichardWarner said:
I'll work on converting the GRNS reel to reel tapes to MP3. Also have high quality copies of the ABC Info, Entertainment, Contemp and FM sounders (original and new) and the Eric Siday CBS package. Unfortunately I just discovered that my old Otari MX55 isn't working right. Anybody know of a place where I could get it repaired? (This is about like asking for someone to repair a wire recorded, I know...)
Click to expand...

Which old networks have/had the "boo-doop" and "chirp" sounders?
Click to expand...

Mutual had the "boo-doop" cues - I think Ludlow Porche's network also uses the DTMF "boo-doop" cues
 
Mutual's "bee-doops" were designed to trip automation...like during the overnight Larry King Show. ABC had some great high pitched beeps that never made it to Athens (where I worked) on the grade-D landlines we were using. In fact, we were on WWID's FM subcarrier and always enjoyed Kenny Rogers bleeding over during "The Reasoner Report" when we ran it on WUOG. GRNS also had crappy landlines for the first four years and then transferred to satellite, which was a very narrowband on NPR's Westar 4. Quality was better, but there was always an audible hiss during peaks. WBBQ insisted that we mail them our spots for airing BTA 6a-mid, which was our agreement for signing them as an affiliate (the biggest deal I had ever made to that point).

There was nothing like having your own network to play with. I've never had a job I felt more comfortable doing. It was really cool.
 
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