And ABC had its own, too, with the beautiful multi-color rims on the record labels.
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How Long Does Radio Have Left?
- Thread starter AM-FM-DXer
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Apparently not.
Absolutely. They had several. Rick Sklar talked about it in his book about WABC. At the time, there was a song called MacArthur Park by Richard Harris. Rick loved the song, and heard it early because it was on ABC's record label. But he didn't want to give the impression he was playing it for the company. So he held off on it, but still supported it when it was released. ABC signed Ray Charles in the 60s. They also signed Steely Dan. All of the ABC record labels are now owned by Universal.
The "C" in CBS stands for Columbia. There was an early relationship between CBS and the Columbia Phonograph company. CBS ultimately bought Columbia in the 1930s. They sold the record company to Sony in 1988.
Mostly because the record industry ganged together and put the kibosh on Sony's DAT (Digital Audio Tape) format, saying it would lead to rampant piracy. Sony then wanted to own a record company, so that way any format they released in the future (such as MiniDisc and SACD) would be ready to go with a library of music they controlled.
Also because CBS was in big financial trouble at the time. They were being attacked by conservatives (sound familiar?) Ted Turner, owner of CNN, wanted to buy the whole company. Instead they sold off the record label for $2 billion
Sony Buys CBS Record Division for $2 Billion After Months of Talks
Ending months of on-again, off-again negotiations and widespread Wall Street speculation, CBS Inc. announced late Wednesday afternoon that it has reached an agreement to sell its record division to Sony Corp.
www.latimes.com
There was actually a station (1440 WMAX) in Saginaw, Michigan that tried All News. They even had airborne traffic reports. It sounded like a major market operation, but barely lasted a year.
What online station is that?
In Latin America where I was it was called Columbia. The initials "CBS" had no meaning there.Not just owned. It was called CBS Records everywhere except North America.
serenade-radio.com
Of course, a few songs do get repeated from time to time when I happen to be listening.
IIRC it was CBS Records only in the US, Columbia everywhere else. Sony still uses the CBS Didot typeface on the Columbia Records logo.
CBS's troubles began when Bill Paley stepped aside 10–15 years too late and no immediate successor was in the wings. Perfect opportunity for Ted to try a hostile takeover attempt. He failed, but CBS was badly overleveraged as a result. Laurence Tisch made things worse by cost-cutting and indifference, which was punctuated by CBS losing the NFC rights and then multiple key affiliates.Also because CBS was in big financial trouble at the time. They were being attacked by conservatives (sound familiar?) Ted Turner, owner of CNN, wanted to buy the whole company. Instead they sold off the record label for $2 billion
Sony Buys CBS Record Division for $2 Billion After Months of Talks
Ending months of on-again, off-again negotiations and widespread Wall Street speculation, CBS Inc. announced late Wednesday afternoon that it has reached an agreement to sell its record division to Sony Corp.
It smacks of laziness and indifference and a lack of interest in trying to think of anything else. Just play out the string and try to make money by being cheap until the audience dies off altogether. Sure if you're in a politically competitive state you might even benefit from ad spending every two years but even that's not going to last forever, either.
Wouldn't it make sense then just to go fully jukeboxed and not do all the newscasts live? Or have AI as the anchors?
WPLG throwing up the white flag and just airing nothing but local news come August is going to be the ultimate case study of diminishing returns.
The main interest people have in local TV is the news and weather. It's not cheap staffing a local news team.
The budget for a local TV station is a fraction of Netflix. Trying to compete with them for original programming is stupid.
Unless they are paid very low, which is not uncommon and especially in smaller markets. It's why people tend to leave the business entirely and go into real estate or consulting.
And the viewership is stagnant at best and getting older and grayer.
Well given that younger demos only see OTA as an old person medium, of course. (Look at the glut of rerun diginets, for one.) But the current demos supporting wall-to-wall news are not going to live forever. What worked in 1995 does not guarantee success in 2025.
Sony is going to move Wheel and Jeopardy! to a streaming-first model next year. They see the writing on the wall.
‘Jeopardy!’ and ‘Wheel of Fortune’ to Leap to Streaming
Sony Pictures Entertainment is soliciting bids for the streaming rights to the two popular game shows.
That's not a programming problem. What I said about local radio applies to local TV. There is no programming anyone can create that will get people to throw away their digital devices and go back to three networks like it's the 70s. How long does local TV have left?
Not just OTA. They see all of real time linear TV as obsolete. That means cable too. There's a reason why NBCUniversal is spinning off its cable networks. Yes all the program suppliers can see the writing on the wall, and none of it's good for people who like linear TV.
So yes, there will come a time very soon when the networks don't own O&Os anymore. They will just create programming for streaming.
Nathan Obral - It is not lazy. It is smart programming. People want to find out about the world out there before they get out in it. There's the option of paying for the rights to air a program and take you 6 minutes an hour of commercial time. You can use your news department that is not just a person or two but a department of behind the scene, reporters and anchors. Their salaries are already paid, so why not maximize their work, take a good 12 minutes or more in advertising and no distribution hours. You realize the 6am viewer is not watching at 7 or 8, so repeating most of the 6am hour later just makes sense because the person that got up at 7 didn't hear that 6:10am feature...they were sleeping. I'm guessing you were thinking radio versus TV that I was describing. News is a real moneymaker if you can do it economically and have a good sales department.
So, out of curiosity, what would you put on WPLG?
So, out of curiosity, what would you put on WPLG?
That's not the case. Advertisers at the local level want to be on newscasts in many if not most markets. I talked with a management person at a local Palm Springs station, and they said they had expended news over and over because advertisers wanted it. In fact, he said, some of the syndicated shows they could have run cost less to program, but did not bring in as much revenue.
Miami has a history of good local news going back over 60 years. It's a news-intensive market, and there is a lot of, again, advertiser interest.
I think the OTA networks will be around as long as they still carry the majority of the major sports packages. Basically the NFL decides when the networks are done. They are moving slowly with streaming, but as more games move to streaming, the networks are in trouble. The Olympics in LA will boost NBC, probably for the last time as Olympic ratings are not what they used to be. But being in LA, the major events will be live in US prime time should boost NBC back to ratings not seen in 20 years. But you can't sustain a business with one-off events every 4 years.
There isn't much on broadcast channels except for news people actually tune into.Unless they are paid very low, which is not uncommon and especially in smaller markets. It's why people tend to leave the business entirely and go into real estate or consulting.
And the viewership is stagnant at best and getting older and grayer.
Well given that younger demos only see OTA as an old person medium, of course. (Look at the glut of rerun diginets, for one.) But the current demos supporting wall-to-wall news are not going to live forever. What worked in 1995 does not guarantee success in 2025.
Sony is going to move Wheel and Jeopardy! to a streaming-first model next year. They see the writing on the wall.
‘Jeopardy!’ and ‘Wheel of Fortune’ to Leap to Streaming
Sony Pictures Entertainment is soliciting bids for the streaming rights to the two popular game shows.www.nytimes.com
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