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Radio Stations Simulcasting TV Newscasts

blue67ccm

blue67ccm

With the end of Analog Television in 2009, in my hometown we lost the audio of our CBS affiliate (Channel 6) which used to be heard at 87.7 FM. Many times the past two years I've been in my car during severe weather angered that I don't have the option to tune in at noon, 5, 6 or 11p anymore (or early mornings, for that matter).

I think WRAL/Raleigh is still simulcasting some news on a radio station there. Are there similar TV/Radio simulcast relationships in your town or that you know of currently?

I think in communities where commutes are lengthening, a local radio station providing a news simulcast at 5 or 6p would be a good service, esp. if they don't have the staff to do one themselves (which in the "post-consolidation era" of radio is usually the case....)
 
Simulcasting TV news on the radio is super lame and should be avoided at all costs.

Obviously, TV news depends on pictures as well as words---and sometimes it depends VERY much on the pictures. This leaves the radio broadcast sounding....well, stupid.

Not only that, but the vocal presence on a TV broadcast is often much less powerful than on a radio broadcast, likely because radio emphasizes audio. This is why it's usually very easy to immeidately determine that you're listening to a TV simulcast rather than a broadcast meant FOR radio.

In Western NY for example, the big newstalker in Buffalo has been simulcasting the first ten minuutes of the CBS evening News for years...and it often sounds horrible.
Katie Couric has no vocal presence and you almost have to laugh when they spend a few minutes on a story that is much more visual. Sure you can use your imagination, but news stories written for TV lack the detail that they would need on radio. Why? Because they can just SHOW you on the TV news, but not on radio!
 
I think this practice was more common in the 1990s....in Miami we had a TV station doing their 11pm news on an AM station, IIRC.

Of course we had the TV weatherman's voice on the radio station, with the dreaded "And, as you see here...."

cd
 
cd637299 said:
Of course we had the TV weatherman's voice on the radio station, with the dreaded "And, as you see here...."
Click to expand...

So I guess this is how we learn what TV is like for blind people.
 
WRAL/Raleigh simulcasts its 6pm news on its sister WRAL-FM 101.5. I like it and listen to it many evenings when coming home from work.

WITN/Greenville, NC simulcasts on 94.1 and 103.7 in the market.
 
WRAL-TV used to have a network of radio stations simulcasting their 6pm newscast, beginning in the late '80s, that included WKRX, Roxboro; WHLQ, Louisburg; WLNC, Laurinburg (out of market); WCHL, Chapel Hill; WDNC, Durham; WCBQ, Oxford and (I think) WIZS or WHNC in Henderson. I believe WKRX (96.7 FM) may be the only one which still does. WRAL-FM was NOT one of the early simulcasters, but began doing so in 2001 (pre-9/11, I believe).

I tune in sometimes during breaking news, but have never really been a fan of TV on radio or a 30-minute interruption in the market's adult contemporary format, especially in a top 50 market. Of course they now break format for NC State football/basketball and their monthlong Christmas "all-holiday" format, neither of which I like, but both of which must do pretty well in the ratings, especially the latter.

Charlotte's WSOC-TV had (and may still have) a similar network of suburban radio stations simulcasting their news.
 
Here in the Philadelphia area, before analog TV went digital, people could HEAR Philadelphia's Channel Six (WPVI / ABC) audio on the very low end of the F.M. band: 87.7 MHz.

Of course, this was NOT a radio station rebroadcasting television audio; it was the actual audio of the TV station, since V.H.F. Channel 6 happened to transmit audio on that particular F.M. frequency, and a number of car radios could be tuned to that low on the F.M. dial.

I was surprised to find people who listened to that television audio on a regular basis. Usually, super news consumers. When they tired of listening to Philadelphia's KYW Newsradio, WHYY-FM public radio, Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, and/or one of the Wilmington news/talk stations or New Jersey 101.5, they went to Channel 6.

Sometimes it was for the regular ABC evening newscast, often for WPVI's Action News. Of course, for certain breaking stories, WPVI had more extensive coverage than any "regular" radio station. People, of course, understood that they were missing the visual component on these stories. It didn't matter.

A couple of times - during longer trips in the Philadelphia area - I would tune in 87.7. Of course, the FCC never intended that TV audio be used in this way, and the switch to digital mode torpedoed this type of listening.
 
DX said:
Here in the Philadelphia area, before analog TV went digital, people could HEAR Philadelphia's Channel Six (WPVI / ABC) audio on the very low end of the F.M. band: 87.7 MHz.

Of course, this was NOT a radio station rebroadcasting television audio; it was the actual audio of the TV station, since V.H.F. Channel 6 happened to transmit audio on that particular F.M. frequency, and a number of car radios could be tuned to that low on the F.M. dial.

I was surprised to find people who listened to that television audio on a regular basis. Usually, super news consumers. When they tired of listening to Philadelphia's KYW Newsradio, WHYY-FM public radio, Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, and/or one of the Wilmington news/talk stations or New Jersey 101.5, they went to Channel 6.

Sometimes it was for the regular ABC evening newscast, often for WPVI's Action News. Of course, for certain breaking stories, WPVI had more extensive coverage than any "regular" radio station. People, of course, understood that they were missing the visual component on these stories. It didn't matter.

A couple of times - during longer trips in the Philadelphia area - I would tune in 87.7. Of course, the FCC never intended that TV audio be used in this way, and the switch to digital mode torpedoed this type of listening.
Click to expand...

In Miami, when WTVJ was analog ch 6, they actually encouraged people to listen to them on 87.7 during their news reports, IIRC.

We still have an analog ch 6 here now, which is Almavision (Spanish Christian programming), stressing only the 87.7. There are bumper stickers around town advertising 87.7, which is stereo.

cd
 
I have Sirius in my car. I like listening to Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room on CNN on my way home from work. It's a good national/world newscast. Sometimes not having the visuals makes a difference, but, at least for me, not enough to cause me not to listen.

On a somewhat related note: I think it's time the FCC loosen its TV-newspaper-radio cross ownership rules. Why? To encourage more radio news. The synergies that co-owned facilities could have would encourage more news programming on radio. A radio station could use a sound-bite that was originally gathered with TV video equipment.
 
I listened to the news (both local and CBS Evening News) on our Channel 6 on 87.7 FM for decades. I still go to turn on 87.7 in my car to this day when severe weather is imminent and I'm driving, only to realize they're not there.

Then I try RADIO STATIONS, and get NO severe weather coverage.

The loss of visual never bothered me listening to it. I think the positives FAR outweigh the negatives ("as you see here", et al)......
 
WOR in New York just recently started simulcasting "NBC Nightly News" - but only the first segment, though... that's right, 10 minutes of Brian Williams right in the middle of the first hour of Michael Savage! :eek:
 
WHIO-AM (1290) in Dayton used to simulcast the 6 p.m. news from its sister station, WHIO-TV (Channel 7) back in the early 1990s. I don't know how long that had been happening or when it stopped. Always being a fan of Channel 7, I listened frequently from Columbus where the TV signal wasn't available (and at the times of year when the AM signal still could be heard here at that hour).
 
McKeesport-licensed WMNY-AM 1360, or whatever WMNY's new callsign will be, has simulcast Pittsburgh ABC outlet WTAE-4's morning news for years. (An interesting development given recent stories about how WTAE was first licensed to Irwin and then McKeesport before moving to Pittsburgh with studios in Wilkinsburg, PA, but I digress.)

Recently, that simulcast was cut back from 5-7 a.m. to 5-6 a.m. when AM 1360 switched from business talk to news-talk with TRN's America's Radio News Network from 6 a.m.-3 p.m. and 6-7 p.m. (A local bartered business news/talk show, The American Entrepreneur still runs in afternoon drivetime).

WTAE news audio also is used by Clear Channel's WPGB-104.7 on its newscasts.

KDKA-1020 can simulcast its sibling KDKA-2 if conditions require it. WPXI-11 used to have the deal with WPGB WTAE now has.

And I remember FM 87.7 as WJAC-6 from Johnstown, many moons ago.
 
WERC AM/960-FM/105.5 in Birmingham AL has been simulcasting the audio of Raycom Fox affil WBRC/6's 5am and 10pm newscasts for the past few months, IIRC, since the wave of tornadoes struck the area back in April. Also in breaking news, CC/Birmingham will directly relay WBRC's audio.

It brings things full-circle, as WERC was once WBRC-AM and directly tied to channel 6.
 
jas2525 said:
Simulcasting TV news on the radio is super lame and should be avoided at all costs.

Obviously, TV news depends on pictures as well as words---and sometimes it depends VERY much on the pictures. This leaves the radio broadcast sounding....well, stupid.

Not only that, but the vocal presence on a TV broadcast is often much less powerful than on a radio broadcast, likely because radio emphasizes audio. This is why it's usually very easy to immeidately determine that you're listening to a TV simulcast rather than a broadcast meant FOR radio.

In Western NY for example, the big newstalker in Buffalo has been simulcasting the first ten minuutes of the CBS evening News for years...and it often sounds horrible.
Katie Couric has no vocal presence and you almost have to laugh when they spend a few minutes on a story that is much more visual. Sure you can use your imagination, but news stories written for TV lack the detail that they would need on radio. Why? Because they can just SHOW you on the TV news, but not on radio!
Click to expand...

It's also illegal.

Local TV stations learned that the hard way on 9/11 when radio stations without news networks quickly made a "deal" with local TV managers to run their audio. Seems the contract TV stations have with their networks do not allow for such deals. Local TV can allow for the rebroadcast of their local reports, not national ones.
 
Win-Win-Win

Lots of radio stations buddy-up with local TV stations, sharing content resources. Done right, this is a win-win-win, because:

  • Radio news staffs are thin-to-non-existent these days. So simulcasting TV’s afternoon newscast might be the only way a radio station can present local news in that daypart. And if radio is staffed, having-dibs-on TV audio, to use as actuality and/or voicer gives the radio station sound and stories it otherwise wouldn’t have. And that TV content has brand equity. The-voice-on-the-radio is “a face,” a reporter listeners know from television.
  • And it’s great promotion for the TV station, since radio is their path to the car. When I managed WTOP/Washington in the ‘80s, we had a handshake with WUSA9 (the former WTOP-TV). We could lift anything we wanted from their air, as long as we said “Channel 9.” HOW valuable was this to TV? The news director at competitor NBC4 offered, “You can use our sound, and not-even-say ‘Channel 4.’ Just PLEASE stop saying ‘Channel 9!’”
  • And it’s a win for the listener: more stuff more places (and they’re getting it from you, not a phone).
 
A low budget Vegas radio statio used to report on fires by watching the TV coverage. Of course there are all kinds of public traffic cameras nowdays.
 
I think a couple of the CBS O&O all news stations air the first few minutes of the CBS Evening News (KCBS in San Francisco carries the live feed at 3:30 Pacific, with a plug at the end of the simulcast to watch it on sister station KPIX). They're not newscasts, but most of the CBS O&O all-newsers also carry "60 Minutes" and "Face The Nation".

KCBS-TV in Los Angeles was apparently simulcasted for a short time...and it wasn't on sister station KNX either. http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/dsplus/m.php?p=kcbs_2news_6pm_2000.mp4
 
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