One reason there were so many Mutual Network stations was CBS and NBC were the prestige networks and they were very very selective about which stations were affiliates. Even into the late 1970s, early 1980s, neither would take a daytime station unless there was some special circumstance like the one in Eastman, GA. WUFF(AM) was daytime only but Stuckey's, headquartered in Eastman, was a big NBC Radio advertiser and the network wanted Mr. Stuckey to hear his ads. Each network wouldn't consider another affiliate unless they were at least 50 air miles apart.
If the station was in a market of 15,000 people or more (city population) the networks would pay the stations.
ABC took their only radio news network and divided it up and it became several in the late 1960s... Information, Contemporary, Entertainment and FM. The difference was how the news was presented with FM being the most "hip" and Information the most "traditional" Information came over the loop at top of hour. Contemporary at :55....Entertainment at :30 and FM was either :45 or :15 after.
Because ABC had four networks vs one they took affifliates everywhere. Paul Harvey was the big draw for ABC Radio Network and they did keep some mileage seperation on his affiliates. I think he was actually part of the Entertainment Network but some of the older ABC affiliates got first pick. Like WMGA in Moultrie was Information and they had Harvey. WALG in Albany was Contemporary but they had Paul Harvey. There were ABC affiliates who didn't have Harvey, lots of them.
Most small market affiliates for Harvey paid $150 per month.
That left Mututal for everyone else and it appeared they only provided in market protection. Numerous stations in neighboring counties had Mutual. I don't know if the network every made money. It went bankrupt several times and at one point was owned by Amway...the Lifesavers Candy people owned it once. The big thing with Mutual was they were the first to install satellite receivers at affiliates allowing affiliates to drop what could be rather expensive phone lines or "loops" as we called them.
To have Mutual was nothing special. To have Harvey from ABC meant you had an easy program to sell. Many stations ran his Noon Show twice...12 noon hour and 1 p.m. hour. To have CBS or NBC meant you were an old line prestige station or the network had a unqiue reason to want your station such as WMOG in Brunswick had CBS because a number of big CBS advertisers and staff had homes on Sea Island.
I was able to get CBS on then 10,000 watt WMGA because WMAZ in Macon dropped CBS to get Paul Harvey on ABC. Then CBS was paying WMAZ $1500 per month. CBS took WMGA because it felt its secondary signal filled in some of the territory lost by WMAZ. That was their rationale..didn't make much sense to me but it allowed us to get CBS even though WMGA overlapped WGPC, WPAX and WTIF which had CBS.
kturnerga said:
Hi!
I have listened to stations not broadcasting any news. I wondered if it was because of no cheap news service feed. Then I thought, "What if there was a modern version of Mutual Radio News?"
Was subscribing to the Mutual network any cheaper than say, ABC or CBS? I still remember their muffled sound and the "Loo-dup" that preceded the spots in the middle of the newscast.
Now that MBS is gone I wonder if someone- either an overseas outfit or an American entity- would allow small stations with canned programming to do news feeds?
60 and :120) headline newscasts.