I have a couple of questions about carrying network news, particularly from ABC, and what the FCC rules were from...let's say...starting in the 1970's. First, back when ABC split into four networks, was only one ABC network permitted to be broadcast in each market, or was it permissible for one radio station to carry one ABC network, while another station carried another one (e.g. one major-market station carrying ABC Information, while another broadcasts ABC Contemporary)? I'm just curious about that because I know that, beginning in the 1990's when Radio Disney (an ABC music network) was launched, it was carried on one AM station in the St. Louis market, while another carried ABC Information news. Of course, I realize that's kind of a different situation, since one ABC network was news and the other music (not to mention the ABC Information radio station was licensed to St. Louis, while the Radio Disney station was licensed to Belleville, Illinois), but I was just wondering what sort of rules the FCC has had for ABC throughout the years, if any. Also, I remember working at an AM/FM in a small, unrated market (Farmington, to be more precise) and we carried ABC Information on the AM and ABC Entertainment on the FM. That was back in the 80's. So my second question is, if you had an AM/FM combo back in those days, did you have to carry different news networks on the AM and FM or would it have been permissible to broadcast the same news network on both stations (whether it was ABC, CBS, Mutual, or whoever)?
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Past FCC Regulations Regarding Network News
- Thread starter js6592
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There was no rule I knew of and it doesn't sound like anything the FCC would involve itself with. My take on ABC was they split in to several newscasts by different names with content and delivery suited for the particular audience (ie: Contemporary, FM, etc). I thought it was a clever idea to command more of the advertising pie and the largest number of affiliates in each market.
ABC Radio split into four news networks which allowed them to tailor the newscasts for certain demographics and radio formats.
The four were:
ABC Information Network at :00 (older skewing, more serious news, much like what CBS, NBC and Mutual were doing)
ABC Entertainment Network at :30 (somewhat fluffier and younger than ABC Info)
ABC Contemporary Network at :55 (Young demos, upbeat presentation)
ABC FM Network at :15 (straightforward, calm presentation)
All were fed on the same network line.
I recall hearing the different networks on different stations in a number of markets.
The four were:
ABC Information Network at :00 (older skewing, more serious news, much like what CBS, NBC and Mutual were doing)
ABC Entertainment Network at :30 (somewhat fluffier and younger than ABC Info)
ABC Contemporary Network at :55 (Young demos, upbeat presentation)
ABC FM Network at :15 (straightforward, calm presentation)
All were fed on the same network line.
I recall hearing the different networks on different stations in a number of markets.
The entire purpose of the ABC split in 1968 was to allow for multiple affiliates in each market (though each of the new networks was market-exclusive - you couldn't have two ABC-I affiliates in the same market, for instance.)
ABC had to do some fancy legal footwork to make it work, and here's why: when the FCC broke up network duopolies and multiple station ownership in 1943 (the move that forced NBC to divest its Blue Network and a group of NBC-owned Blue stations, which is how ABC came into being), the way the rule was written was that no single owner could *simultaneously* provide service over multiple networks to multiple stations in the same market.
The loophole there was that ABC was only serving one set of affiliates at a time: there was a single network feed on which ABC-I sent its newscast at the top of the hour, ABC-E at :55, and so on. Some affiliates of the other networks that weren't ABC-I would record the earlier feeds and play them back at the top of the hour, so you could have had a scenario where one station in a market had ABC-I news at :00 and another was playing back ABC-E or ABC-C news at the same time.
The rules were eventually changed, and now networks can feed anything they want to as many stations as they want, simultaneously.
ABC had to do some fancy legal footwork to make it work, and here's why: when the FCC broke up network duopolies and multiple station ownership in 1943 (the move that forced NBC to divest its Blue Network and a group of NBC-owned Blue stations, which is how ABC came into being), the way the rule was written was that no single owner could *simultaneously* provide service over multiple networks to multiple stations in the same market.
The loophole there was that ABC was only serving one set of affiliates at a time: there was a single network feed on which ABC-I sent its newscast at the top of the hour, ABC-E at :55, and so on. Some affiliates of the other networks that weren't ABC-I would record the earlier feeds and play them back at the top of the hour, so you could have had a scenario where one station in a market had ABC-I news at :00 and another was playing back ABC-E or ABC-C news at the same time.
The rules were eventually changed, and now networks can feed anything they want to as many stations as they want, simultaneously.
A lot of markets had 2 of the 4, maybe more. Mutual also had several networks (Comprehensive news at :00 and 30, Progressive News at :55 and Mutual Black---I forget what time There apparently was a short-lived Spanish network.
NBC rolled out "The Source" for AOR stations in the 80s, and CBS's one shot at a demographic network was RadioRadio, never branded that way on air.
NBC rolled out "The Source" for AOR stations in the 80s, and CBS's one shot at a demographic network was RadioRadio, never branded that way on air.
Which ABC network was Paul Harvey considered a part of, or was he available for any of them? WTRO/WASL in Dyersburg, TN carried the contemporary network for news but also carried Harvey.
Paul Harvey News and Comment was a feature of the Entertainment Network, and Entertainment affiliated had the right of first refusal. Harvey was heard on affiliated of all of the networks. I'm sure we had ABC rather than Mutual at my first station due to Paul Harvey
Odd thing: I was PD at a small market music intensive CHR that carried 4 one minute ABC Contemporary casts each weekday but being in a military town, they wanted Paul Harvey, so we ran him in the noon hour. Naturally we had the two 30 second network spots added to the :50 break in hours we didn't do news. There were no other ABC affiliates in our market.
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