Everything about All-news Radio totally explained
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 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. Some former all news stations, like
KNX and
WBZ, now run
talk radio programs on weekends and during off peak hours. 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
Broadcasting pioneer
Arthur W. Arundel created 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
1964.
Another early prototypical all-news format was in use by
WABC-FM in New York during the 114-day newspaper strike which lasted from
December 8,
1962 to
March 31,
1963. 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.
Radio programmer
Gordon McLendon, who has been credited with pioneering top 40, background music and telephone talk formats, is generally acknowledged to have put the first all-news format on the air. It happened in the
1960s on
XETRA, a station licensed to Tijuana, Mexico, that could be heard as far away as Los Angeles, and also on
WNUS 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.
Group W, the broadcast division of
Westinghouse, adopted a second kind of all-news format, using 20-minute rather than 30-minute cycles 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
WINS New York and
KFWB Los Angeles. WINS began broadcasting 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.
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 the mid-1990s 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 don't 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.
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.
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
All-news stations in the United States
Note: All are owned by CBS unless otherwise noted
- KCBS - San Francisco, California
- KFWB - Los Angeles, California (since March 11, 1968)
- KFXR - Dallas, Texas (Clear Channel Communications)
- KIKK - Houston, Texas (daytime only station)
- KLIV - San Jose, California (Empire Broadcasting)
- KNX - Los Angeles, California
- KOMO - Seattle, Washington (Fisher Communications)
- KQV - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Calvary, Inc.) (all-news for daytime hours only)
- KYW - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (since September 21, 1965)
- WBBM - Chicago, Illinois
- WBZ - Boston, Massachusetts (all-news for daytime hours only)
- WCBS - New York City (since August 28, 1967)
- WINS - New York City (since April 19, 1965)
- WKOK - Sunbury, Pennsylvania (all-news for daytime hours only, locally owned)
- WPNN - Pensacola, Florida (Miracle Radio)
- WTOP - Washington, D.C. (Bonneville International)
- WWJ - Detroit, Michigan
All-news stations in Australia
ABC NewsRadio - National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
All-news stations in Canada
Note: All are owned by Rogers Broadcasting unless noted
CFFR ("660 News") - Calgary, Alberta
CFTR ("680 News") - Toronto, Ontario
CKWX ("News 1130") - Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada 360 (XM Radio Canada)
News-talk radio station 570 News in Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario (also a Rogers Broadcasting owned station) uses an all-news wheel for its morning show, simulating its sister station 680 News 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 didn't achieve broad appeal, and was shut down in May 2002. The station currently airs an all-traffic format under the call sign CHMJ.
All-news stations in Europe
LBC News 1152 - London, United Kingdom
France Info - Europe's first all news radio station broadcast since 1987
all news station "B5 aktuell" (B5 up-to-date) from public Bayerischer Rundfunk (Radio-Television Bavaria) in Germany
news-talk station "SWR cont.ra" (SWR content radio) from Südwestrundfunk (Southwest Broadcasting), a German public broadcaster based in Stuttgart
Newstalk - A news and topical-based discussion radio broadcast station in Ireland Dublin, Ireland.
For a near-complete list of News/Talk radio stations, see Further Information
Get more info on 'All-news Radio'.
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