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Red Apple Media Starting a News Network

B

Barry

WABC’s owner announced plans to launch the rather pompously named Worldwide News Network. It will be headed by Lee Harris, who had a long run on WINS. WABC’s network, Red Apple Media, stated the new network will be carried by radio stations, as well as online.
As with WABC’s current programming, it seems questionable whether this would exist, except as a vanity project for its billionaire owner.

From RadioInsight
 
MichaelD1972 said:
Here is the first TOH newscast of the Worldwide News Network, recorded from WABC New York, NY. Michael Wallace was the anchor for the first newscast.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting this. The overall tone actually sounds good. The reporters, both from News Nation, give it the required national network feel.

Everything else is read by the anchor with a couple of soundbites dropped in from Trump and a member of his administration. So, the selection of soundbites is the only thing that feels one-sided out of the gate, even if it's subtle.

It's a good-sounding debut, though. The content is respectable so that's not the biggest challenge Cats faces. His bigger issues are the lack of a well-established legacy network, lack of existing relationships with broadcasters, and until now, a new, unproven product that has to compete with the likes of ABC News, a known and trusted brand.

It seems that most former CBS Radio news affiliates already made their decision and picked up ABC News to replace it. Contracts should be in place at those stations and the agreements may be company-wide at large consolidators like Audacy, so it might be a while before Cats can coax some of them to switch.
 
Right now, I have only found two former CBS News Radio affiliates that have signed on with Worldwide News Network. Those are 1100 KFNX Pheonix, AZ and 1540 WADK Newport, RI. ABC News is the big winner, followed by NBC News in second when it comes to the shutdown of CBS News Radio.
 
MichaelD1972 said:
Right now, I have only found two former CBS News Radio affiliates that have signed on with Worldwide News Network. Those are 1100 KFNX Pheonix, AZ and 1540 WADK Newport, RI. ABC News is the big winner, followed by NBC News in second when it comes to the shutdown of CBS News Radio.
Click to expand...
KIVA Albuquerque is airing the network's newscasts, as of 10 am Mountain time this morning. See: Updates on Affiliation Switch from CBS News Radio Closure.
 
WADK from Rhode Island is a curious choice to bring aboard the new network.
I say 'curious' despite having heard them out here in NEPA a few Aprils ago when a wee clock radio I'd left tuned to 1540 for some reason (and a clear/skipping WADK) woke me from an afternoon nap. That was a real one-off anomaly.
They were a peppy station with a wildly-flung variety of programming, much with community emphasis, not too dissimilar to full-service 2026 AM stations like WEEU Reading, WPPA Pottsville and even WLNG Sag Harbor Long Island without the Oldies. They're the only commercially standard-licensed station to the the city (also the upscale county seat) plus they cover Nantucket and Martha's like a local.
There were numerous ads for seafood dining places amid the spot clusters I heard, which made me hungry out here in Coal Country PA.
Here's my curiosity: WADK shows up in no ratings book in the region .... They're a strict daytimer .... Just 1000 watts ..... Hanging off the end of the AM dial. Yet they seem pretty self-sufficient.
Might it be that Mr. Cats, perhaps expressing his empathy for upscale communities like Rockland County and the Hamptons (and with the America's Cup thrown in) approached WADK instead of vice-versa? Free news service for a year?
Anyone from more immediate earshot vantage with any word how this came about?
 


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