All News Channel

All News Channel was a 24-hour news channel carried mainly on DirecTV (and before that USSB which was folded into DirecTV in 1999). All News Channel (ANC) had also been syndicated to network television afflliates in the United States.

Many local television stations carried All News Channel programming during the overnight time periods in lieu of going off the air. In addition, since ANC newscasts never contained any copyrighted music (by design), stations broadcasting the ANC feed could stay on the air longer without increasing their ASCAP, Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI), and/or SESAC fees.

ANC was based in St. Paul, Minnesota and was co-owned by Viacom and Hubbard Broadcasting. This parnership was called CONUS Communications and included a news video-sharing service for local TV stations. Nearly all of ANC's video came from these stations. CONUS (which stood for Continental U.S.) also maintained a small bureau in Washington, DC.

ANC aired up to six live 30-minute newscasts per day (4:00 a.m., 4:30 a.m. (sometimes),8:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m., and 10:00 p.m. Central Time), which were repeated until the next newscast. Exceptions were made for breaking news. ANC also co-produced First Business. If mistakes were made during the live broadcasts, a corrected segment was produced (sometimes live) for the repeats. ANC operated on a fixed clock, where each news block ran the same length every day, and the commercials aired at the same time every day. The air talent was mostly exclusive to All News Channel. KSTP-TV meteorologists recorded weather segments for ANC until 2002. Later, ANC show producers voiced their own weather segments, along with other stories.

ANC was the first nationwide challenger to CNN since the Satellite News Channel folded in 1983. But the station was never profitable and could not withstand the challenges of MSNBC and Fox News Channel, which pushed ANC to fourth place in its category.

ANC, which was founded in 1989 [http://list.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9709c&L=aejmc&T=0&P=7490] , ceased broadcasts on September 30, 2002.