All-news radio

For the television series NewsRadio, see NewsRadio.

All-news radio is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcast of news.

All-news radio is available in both local and syndicated forms, and is carried in some form on both major US satellite radio networks. Some all-news stations, like KYW, WBBM and WCBS, carry sports, and all-news stations may occasionally carry public affairs programs, simulcasts of TV news magazine or political affairs shows like 60 Minutes and Face the Nation, and national radio shows revolving around news such as the CBS News Weekend Roundup. Some all news stations, like KNX and WBZ, run talk radio programs on weekends and during off peak hours, while WBBM also carries programming revolving around the NFL Chicago Bears, as that station airs the play-by-play for the team. Some CBS news radio stations also air When Radio Was in the overnight hours, a nightly program featuring rebroadcasts of old time radio. Most of these stations are owned by CBS Radio, and therefore are affiliated with the CBS Radio network.

Many stations brand themselves Newsradio but only run continuous news during the morning and afternoon drive times. These stations are properly labeled as "news/talk" talk radio stations. Also, some National Public Radio stations identify themselves as News and Information stations, which means that in addition to running the NPR news magazines like Morning Edition and All Things Considered, they run other information programs such as Day to Day, Talk of the Nation, and the BBC World Service.

History

According to a Wikipedia site for 1100 KFAX radio in San Francisco, Calif., what had been KJBS radio changed to KFAX in late 1959 when the station changed formats from music, news, and sports, to become the nation's first all-news radio station. However, this experiment proved unsuccessful.

Broadcasting pioneer Arthur W. Arundel is credited with creating the first 24-hour All News station, radio or television, in the United States in January 1961 on his owned and operated WAVA in Washington. The station’s success was largely driven by a Nation’s Capital audience then riveted to news of the Vietnam War and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. Arundel helped other stations in New York and Chicago also to convert to his All News All the Time format and then met direct competition from Washington Post-owned WTOP in 1969.

Radio programmer Gordon McLendon, who has been credited with pioneering top 40, all-sports, background music and telephone talk formats, is also an acknowledged pioneer in the all-news format. XTRA News went on the air May 5, 1961 from XETRA, a station licensed to Tijuana, Mexico, that could be heard as far away as Los Angeles, followed shortly afterwards by W-NUS in Chicago.

Its format, which can be heard to this day on many all-news stations, was to start each half hour with world and national news, preferably from a network, then switch to locally-anchored area news, filling out the half hour with sports, business news and features. XETRA had no outside reporters and got all of its local news from the AP and UPI wire services. Both stations operated using a 15 minute news cycle (newscasts repeated every 15 minutes)

Another early prototypical all-news format was in use by WABC-FM in New York during the 114-day 1962 New York City newspaper strike which lasted from December 8, 1962 to March 31, 1963.^[1] The format only lasted as long as the strike, though, and reverted to its regular format of Broadway show tunes and simulcasting of its AM sister station after the strike ended. The following year, ABC's Detroit FM station, WXYZ-FM made a similar effort during a newspaper strike. Both stations, which previously had simulcast their AM sister stations, carried ABC Radio Network news programs (including those not usually by the AM Top 40 stations), AM local newscasts plus wire service stories read to fill the balance of the time.

Group W, the broadcast division of Westinghouse, adopted a an all-news format 30-minute cycles (despite the later slogan "You give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world.") that eschewed network newscasts so that local and non-local news could be freely mixed, according to what was more interesting or important on any given day. Westinghouse also used field reporters at its all-news stations, which included 1010 WINS New York, KYW Newsradio 1060 and KFWB News 98 Los Angeles. WINS began broadcasting its all-news format in April 1965. A second New York all-news station, WCBS began all-news programming on August 28, 1967, although its first broadcasts were on its sister FM station after a plane crashed into its tower, knocking the AM station off the air. CBS converted some of its other AM outlets to this WCBS "Newsradio" format over the next several months and years, including WBBM-AM, KCBS-AM, KNX and WEEI (which CBS sold in the 1980s).

In 1975, the NBC Radio Network shut down its profitable weekend music and information service NBC Monitor to launch the News & Information Service (NIS), the first all-news radio network. It was closed two years later in a cost-cutting move though it had strong ratings in some key markets.

In 1994 a similar effort to NIS was launched by the Associated Press. It was officially known as AP All-News Radio and had many affiliates from coast to coast. However, it was informally better known by its promotional title of "The News Station." The Associated Press discontinued the all-news format in July 2005.

The last national all-news radio service in the United States, the audio feed of CNN Headline News, is being phased out by Westwood One as of 2007. Headline News's audio feed was popular among all-news stations, particularly after the AP disbanded their format in 2005, until the TV station decided to abandon its all-news format and add talk show programming in prime time, when many smaller stations do not have air staff and rely on a network feed, in 2006. Only a limited number of affiliates remain as many have become talk radio stations. (There are, however, a number of daytime-only stations that continue to carry the audio simulcast, now known as HLN.) CNN also for a time offered a second all news-channel with the hour filled with CNN Radio newscasts on the hour and half-hour and business, sports and feature segments from CNN Radio and Headline News at specific points each hour, plus time segments for local news to be inserted. Many smaller affiliates, however, preferred Headline News audio which was more suited to turn-key (or unattended, automated) operation.

While not a full-time NIS, the CBS Radio Network provides significant content for many, if not most, all-news radio stations in the United States, especially local stations in smaller markets. Talk Radio Network introduced an all-news service, America's Radio News Network, in 2009, beginning with a midday news block (in the Eastern Time zone)and since expanding into other dayparts; the network has not programmed overnights.

All-news has for years been a top-rated radio format in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities, but as big city traffic worsens and people work longer hours that increase the urgency of planning their day ahead the focus of such stations has increasingly been on traffic and weather, often updated every 10 minutes. Attempts at long-form commercial all-news stations, such as Washington Post Radio, have been largely unsuccessful.

Stations

For a near-complete list of News/Talk radio stations, see Category:News and talk radio stations

All-news stations in the United States

Note: All are owned by CBS unless otherwise noted

• KCBS - San Francisco, California
• KLIV - San Jose, California (Empire Broadcasting)
• KNX - Los Angeles, California
• KOMO - Seattle, Washington (Fisher Communications)
• KQV - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Richard Mellon Scaife) (all-news for daytime hours only)
• KRLD - Dallas, Texas (since September 27, 2010) (all-news for daytime hours only)
• KYW - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (since September 21, 1965)
• WBBM - Chicago, Illinois
• WWWN - Chicago, Illinois (Randy Michaels)
• WBZ - Boston, Massachusetts (all-news for daytime hours only)
• WCBS - New York City (since August 28, 1967)
• WEMP - New York City (Randy Michaels)
• WINS - New York City (since April 19, 1965)
• WINK - Fort Myers, Florida (Fort Myers Broadcasting) (all-news for daytime hours only)
• WTOP - Washington, D.C. (Hubbard Broadcasting) (All News since 1969; CBS Radio affiliate)
• WFED - Washington, D.C. (Hubbard Broadcasting)
• WWJ - Detroit, Michigan (since 1973)
• WUAM - Albany, New York (Ernie Anastos) (Audio simulcast of YNN Capital Region, a local cable news channel)

All-news stations in Australia

• ABC NewsRadio - National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
• RPH - capital cities and some regional centres (various)

All-news stations in Canada

Between 1977 and 1989 Canada All News Limited operated Canada's first attempt at all news radio with a network of nine FM stations in major Canadian cities, all using the call letters CKO (or CK News). The effort was similar in some ways to NBC Radio's News and Information Service, mostly national news programming with cut-ins for individual stations to broadcast local news. The network was also the first to offer live broadcasts of Question Time in the Canadian parliament. The network was plagued by low ratings and poor advertising sales (similar to problems faced by all-news radio networks operated by NBC, CNN and AP in the US). Ironically, the stations listed below operate in cities which CK News had served previously.

Note: All are owned by Rogers Broadcasting unless noted

• CFFR ("660News") - Calgary, Alberta
• CFTR ("680News") - Toronto, Ontario
• CKWX ("News1130") - Vancouver, British Columbia
• CIWW ("1310News") - Ottawa, Ontario
• CHQT ("inews880") - Edmonton, Alberta (Corus Entertainment)
• Canada 360 (XM Radio Canada)
• Quoi de Neuf (French) (XM Radio Canada)

News-talk radio stations 570 News in Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario, News95.7 in Halifax, News91.9 in Moncton, New Brunswick and News88.9 in Saint John, New Brunswick (also Rogers Broadcasting-owned stations) use an all-news wheel for their morning and afternoon shows, simulating their sister station, 680News in Toronto.

In February 2001, Corus Entertainment launched an all-news sister station to Vancouver news-talk station CKNW. All news NW2 (CJNW AM730, formerly CKLG) was branded as "24 hour news radio, powered by CKNW." NW2 shared newsroom resources with CKNW, including several anchors and reporters. However, NW2 did not achieve broad appeal, and was shut down in May 2002. The station currently airs an all-traffic format under the call sign CHMJ.

That same year, Corus acquired two all-news stations in Montreal, CINW ("940 News") at 940 AM in English and CINF ("Info 690") at 690 AM in French, which had launched in late 1999. These frequencies were previously operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's English and French radio services respectively before the public broadcaster switched to the FM dial. But as AM radio listenership in Montreal declined sharply in recent years – only longtime talk-radio stations CJAD in English and CKAC in French (now an all-sports station) remained popular – neither CINW nor CINF were able to make a profit (even after several format changes on CINW), and Corus finally shut down both stations on January 29, 2010.

All-news stations in the United Kingdom

• LBC News 1152 - Rolling news for London from 5.00 am to 7.00 pm, with simulcast of LBC 97.3 at other times.
• BBC Radio Five Live - News and sport station from the BBC with sports commentaries at evenings and weekends.

All-news stations in Germany

All the all-news stations in Germany are operated by the local public broadcasters in the different states.

• SWR cont.ra (SWR content radio) from South West Broadcasting Südwestrundfunk
• Inforadio from Broadcasting Berlin/Brandenburg Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg
• B5 aktuell (B5 up-to-date) from Bavarian Broadcasting Bayerischer Rundfunk
• hr-info from Hessian Broadcasting Hessischer Rundfunk
• MDR Info from Central German Broadcasting Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk
• NDR Info from North German Broadcasting Norddeutscher Rundfunk

All-news stations in Italy

• Radio 24 - The main Italian private all-news radio, owned by the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.
• Babboleo News - Italian first local all news radio in Genoa, Liguria.

All-news stations in Ireland

• RTÉ Choice is a news service with news from around the world including several broadcasts from internation stations.

• RTÉ Radio 1 is a Mixed Genre service but it provides the most comprehensive news and current affairs coverage in the country.

• Newstalk is an independent national all news radio service operated by Communicorp.

All-news stations in France

• France Info - Europe's first all news radio station broadcast since 1987.

All-news stations in the Netherlands

• BNR Nieuwsradio - Non-stop news.

All-News Radio Stations in Norway

NRK Alltid nyheter- NRK's All-News Station.

All-news stations in Malaysia

• Radio24 (Malaysia) - All news station operated by state news agency, BERNAMA.

All-news stations in the Philippines

AM Band

Almost all AM stations in the Philippines are all-news stations. These are:

• DWIZ 882
• GMA Super Radyo DZBB 594
• RMN DZXL 558 kHz
• DZRH
• ABS-CBN DZMM Radyo Patrol 630
• Radyo Inquirer 990
• Radyo ng Bayan 738
• DZRJ 810AM The Voice of the Philippines (English)
• Aksyon Radyo

FM Band

• Radyo5 92.3 News FM
• 97.5 News and Talk FM (Naga City)

All-news stations in Spain

• Radio 5 Todo Noticias - National news station from the Spanish public broadcaster
• Catalunya Informació - Catalan news station for Catalonia
• Radio Andalucía Información- Regional news station for Andalusia

See also

• Radio format

References

1. ^ Hinckley, David. "WRKS SHOWS WHY NO RACE HAD 'SOUL' POSSESSION", Daily News (New York), November 29, 1997. Accessed January 18, 2009.

External links

• AM Broadcasting History - Various Articles
• News radio stations in the US and some international.