Word: news
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Much the same humiliation befell NBC's network news operation after last month's California earthquake. KRON, the NBC affiliate in San Francisco, tried to transmit its footage of the disaster to NBC via satellite. But for more than an hour after the tremor, a glitch-prone NBC network was unable to broadcast any live reports. Meanwhile, CNN, which had access to the same satellite signal, was airing KRON's vivid images of the destruction...
...television is a business built on tenuous alliances. While the three major broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS and NBC -- have long been the dominant U.S. television programmers, they own only 20 stations. The other 620 that carry network programming are known as affiliates. These stations have traditionally served as supplementary news sources for the networks, but only loyalty and a common stake in competing against the other networks have prevented the affiliates from gathering and selling their stories elsewhere. Until...
Affiliation with a network no longer offers the protection from local competition it once did. To stand out amid increasingly stiff competition, many local stations are turning to expanded news programs. Journalism is local television's biggest money spinner, typically accounting for at least a third of a station's revenues and an even higher share of profits...
...news coverage is just about the most profitable thing a station can do, in part because production costs typically are less than half those of entertainment shows. And since news stories can be used repeatedly on broadcasts throughout the day, stations can sell more advertising time a minute of material, further increasing their profit margins. Moreover, many advertisers will pay premium rates to run their commercials during news shows because such programs generally attract consumers with higher average incomes...
...affiliate WCVB in Boston, news shows accounted for 39.5% of the station's revenues last year. WCVB boasts that it has the largest news staff of any U.S. station -- 350 reporters, producers, anchors and technicians -- as well as two trucks equipped with satellite uplinks to beam stories back to the station from remote locations. News departments at dozens of U.S. stations today own their own satellite-transmitting trucks, up from only a handful five years...