NBC News and Information Service

I've uploaded all three hours of the first day on the air, June 18, 1975.

The details are on the Aircheck Collectors Board.

you should check out Broadcasting Magazine's coverage in the 2-05-1975 issue

www.americanradiohistory.com

I'm not sure what the 2-5-75 issue means, but I did find some interesting stuff in three other issues:

April 7, 1975, two page ad for NNIS, and a small story on page 6.

April 14, 1975, page 64, 1st affiliate signed. The article said KHUX, when in reality it was KRUX in Glendale AZ.

April 21, 1975, page 46, there was a news story about the NBC O & O stations that would be on the network.

Thanks,

Mike said:

I'm not sure what the 2-5-75 issue means, but I did find some interesting stuff in three other issues:

April 7, 1975, two page ad for NNIS, and a small story on page 6.

April 14, 1975, page 64, 1st affiliate signed. The article said KHUX, when in reality it was KRUX in Glendale AZ.

April 21, 1975, page 46, there was a news story about the NBC O & O stations that would be on the network.

Thanks,

Click to expand...

OK I should start taking memory pills It is actually the Feb 10, 1975 issue with the multi-page ad announcing "THE BIGGEST NEWS IN RADIO HISTORY!"

Thanks. I went over and checked that article out. Very interesting.

ercjncpr said:

you should check out Broadcasting Magazine's coverage in the 2-05-1975 issue

www.americanradiohistory.com

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Thanks for the link. I did not know about that site. It is a GREAT resource. Broadcasting Magazine, Broadcasting Yearbook and several other trade publications online and searchable.

It's sad that NIS didn't survive. Neither did AP's or CNN's all news feeds. NIS was well done but apparently even with a network to cover up to 50 minutes of each hour, all news radio can't thrive outside markets big enough where there's enough cume to make up for short TSL.

I may be old fashioned (a sure bet) but I never liked hearing CNN Headlien News on the radio. Sure, it's an easy way to fill time, but the stories are written and shot for TV. The radio listener loses out if someone says, "Look at that tree over there..." I can't see the tree. Somebody's gotta say, "A tree that has stood here for nearly one hundred years is now a shadow of its former self." Then I can visualize what the tree might look like after a high wind has ravaged an area.

CNN Headline News was great for TV, but bad (in my opinion) for radio.

(/rant)

Has anyone heard the TRN three-hour all news blocks that they're launching? I'm curious to hear how they sound. What's the clock like? Do affiliates get enough local commercial avails to make this financially viable?

Re CNN TV audio on radio: I agree, it's not the greatest. However, I do like listening to CNN's main channel on Sirius when there is big breaking news such as the recent events in Japan.

Another problem with the NIS and CNN feeds: Your local commercial avails are limited. All-news is an expensive format. You need as many local commercial avails as you can get.

Given that, here's a method of bringing all-news to more stations that I've thought about: A radio station (preferably FM) uses audio from a local TV station. NOT broadcasting entire newscasts live from TV audio, but plucking soundbites and reporters' pieces from the TV feed and re-purposing them on the radio. Part of the problem with all news is that it's so expensive. This way, you staff the radio all-newser with anchors and maybe a newsroom editor to cut up the TV audio, no radio reporters necessary. Plus, you're not running a lot of network programs that eat up your commercial avails.

This is one reason why I think the FCC should loosen the rules on radio-TV co-ownership. It might just encourage more news coverage on radio because of the ability to share resources.

Thoughts?

@Summary: I agree. I'd not only loosen up rules on radio-TV co-ownership but include local newspaper co-ownership, too. Even by today's rules, though, there are a lot of co-owned radio and TV properties and those that I've observed seem to do very little (or nothing) in the way of combining news efforts. Once in a while the TV weather or traffic person does some reports for radio but that's about it.

Since Headline News is no longer an all-news channel, that pretty much kills any use of the audio for all news radio. When CNN Radio was pushing HLN audio for radio, they did seem to minimize (but not eliminate) spoken references to the picture. But they stopped bothering doing that a while ago. At one point, CNN did have an all news radio feed. It packaged elements from CNN Radio plus some from HLN to create an actual all-news format wheel. The difference between it and NBC NIS, of course, was CNN Radio top and bottom of the hour newscasts were part of the package (along with a sports segment, business segment, feature segment and cut-aways for local news). Most of the same elements were available for on-demand use by any CNN Radio affiliate, too. That said, even without NIS, AP Radio or CNN Radio, it seems using today's automation technology, any network affiliate could build their own all news package. But apparently there isn't much interest in doing that.

No station in Boston ever carried NBC's NIS service.

The nearest station to Boston that did was Providence's WEAN-790 (which dumped an adult contemporary music format to pick-up NIS; once NIS went under, WEAN returned to AC).

NBC fed NIS stations material from :05 to :29 and :35 to :59 past the hour. From :00 to :05 past, the hourly newscast for the "regular" NBC Radio affiliate would be heard, while at :30 to :35 past, an "Emphasis" or other feature intended for affiliates of the "regular" NBC radio Network would be fed.

NIS stations were supposed to air local news at the top and bottom of each hour.

I enjoyed NBC's NIS. I thought it was well executed with great sounders and great anchors. Listening in New York on WNWS at 97.1 the local breaks were well integrated with the national service. I wish it had continued. Today the only national news service is America's Radio News, which only runs during the week.

When NBC got back into the hourly news game this year I really hoped they would have launched some kind of national service.

benale said:

When NBC got back into the hourly news game this year I really hoped they would have launched some kind of national service.

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I don't recall who it is offhand, but I believe the NBC News Radio is only branding - the news is produced by another network.

Hello.

By any chance could somoene please upload these airchecks again? The links to the files on SendSpace are dead.

Perhaps a different upload site would work better, such as Dropbox, 4shared, or Rapidshare. Files tend to stay on those sites for long periods without being deleted, I've noticed.

Just a friendly suggestion.

On his website, David Gleason has posted a copy of a booklet published by NBC Radio in 1975 (I suspect that was the date the booklet was published, because it did not include the "N" logo the network adopted on January 1st, 1976) to convince stations to subscribe to it's News and Information service.

It has information on who were the anchors, the format clock, and other information those contributing to this thread will enjoy.

Read it (this is a PDF file) at http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Station-Albums/NBC-NIS-1976.pdf .

Sorry. I don't get over here too much.

I've uploaded the News and Information Service again using 4shared.com (as requested).

Hour 1 http://www.4shared.com/mp3/dn8hTQip/NNIS_Hour_1.html?refurl=d1url
Hour 2.1 http://www.4shared.com/mp3/0rNt8K7Y/NNIS_Hour_21.html?refurl=d1url
Hour 2.2 http://www.4shared.com/mp3/G__rKk7m/NNIS_Hour_22.html?refurl=d1url
Hour 3 http://www.4shared.com/mp3/wt9Kh5V1/NNIS_Hour_3.html?refurl=d1url


This is the first three hours of the service as recorded from KRUX, 1360, Glendale AZ. I recorded this on an 1800 foot reel of tape. Thus, hour number two is divided up. Sorry, I wasn't rich enough to buy a second tape recorder and make unbroken airchecks.

Enjoy.

Mike said:

Sorry. I don't get over here too much.

I've uploaded the News and Information Service again using 4shared.com (as requested).

Hour 1 http://www.4shared.com/mp3/dn8hTQip/NNIS_Hour_1.html?refurl=d1url
Hour 2.1 http://www.4shared.com/mp3/0rNt8K7Y/NNIS_Hour_21.html?refurl=d1url
Hour 2.2 http://www.4shared.com/mp3/G__rKk7m/NNIS_Hour_22.html?refurl=d1url
Hour 3 http://www.4shared.com/mp3/wt9Kh5V1/NNIS_Hour_3.html?refurl=d1url


This is the first three hours of the service as recorded from KRUX, 1360, Glendale AZ. I recorded this on an 1800 foot reel of tape. Thus, hour number two is divided up. Sorry, I wasn't rich enough to buy a second tape recorder and make unbroken airchecks.

Enjoy.

Click to expand...

THANK YOU very much!!

I'd like to echo the thanks for making the debut of NBC NIS available because as a long-time collector of old radio news, this was something I was really unfamiliar with and now that I've had a chance to listen to what it was all about, I think it was a concept that deserved to last longer than it did. I've been able to sample a large number of other network radio newscasts from this era through pastdaily.com and by contrast the CBS World News Roundup broadcasts have a much stodgier quality to them presentation wise compared to the approach NBC was trying.

As a result I've been looking about for the other examples of NIS to be found on the net and this is what I've come up with:


January 23, 1976. WWTC Minneapolis http://www.radiotapes.com/WWTC.html
August 11, 1976. WNIS-FM Chicago http://chicagoradioandmedia.com/multimedia/audio/6756-wnis-fm-newscast-august-11-1976
December 31, 1976. WWNS-FM New York http://formatchange.com/wnws-fm-becomes-y97-wyny/ (the final minute before the format change and the end of NIS in New York)
January 7, 1977. WEAN-Providence, RI. http://northeastairchecks.com/checks/wean.ram
February 27, 1977. WNNS-FM, Louisville http://www.lkyradio.com/WAMZ.htm

Let's hope there are other examples to be found! But in the meantime, these initial three hours was pure gold.

MattParker said:

It's sad that NIS didn't survive. Neither did AP's or CNN's all news feeds. NIS was well done but apparently even with a network to cover up to 50 minutes of each hour, all news radio can't thrive outside markets big enough where there's enough cume to make up for short TSL.

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My first PD job came at a small-market (Oxnard-Ventura, CA) station whose AM had been a NIS affiliate from shortly after the network sign-on to right before they pulled the plug; in the interim they had put a new automated FM on the air with a MOR format, started simulcasting on the AM post-NIS, and only then discovered how bad it was ... and hired me to fix it.

I did get to see a comparison of the billing numbers (local sales) between the last year as all-news and the first year of the simulcast A/C format I did, and they were sold out 6am to 7pm every day as a NIS station. We did almost as well by the end of our second year as a music station.

My take is that NIS failed for a few reasons, few of which having to do with selling on lower cume.

1. My former station made a commitment to local news coverage with a fully-staffed news department. Only three of the on-air staff of 12 were purely announcers (and one of those three was the weekend part-timer); the rest had backgrounds in radio news.
2. Having a second network for top-of-the-hour -- we had ABC Information -- reduced the load on the news department in terms of must-be-covered minutes. I would have, in a smaller market, wanted either Mutual or both ABC/I and ABC/E, in order to have that coverage at both :00 and :30.
3. Local features. My former station used to produce a ton of them ... no fewer than 15 in rotation at any given time, which ran about 90 seconds in length and were used as part of the :30 local segment when there was less news than would be ideal.
4. Stations that simply re-wrote the local newspaper and/or read tons of regional and state wire copy in the local segments were "phoning it in" and giving listeners no reason to stick around.

But the biggest reason for NIS' failure was NBC's lack of a total commitment to the format and to the network. In all but one of their O&O markets -- including New York, Chicago, and San Francisco -- they put NIS on their FM and then tried in vain to cross-promote it on their AMs ("now there's an all-news station on FM!"), when what they should have done was move the successful personality and music formats from their AMs to their FMs and gone all-news on the AM. The early 1970s was just too soon to try that on FM. They actually proved this themselves: The one market where they did install NIS on AM -- Washington DC, on WRC -- it got good ratings and local sales. And I think they were simulcasting the AM programming on the FM in the three markets I mentioned above anyway, so it could have been a gentle transition for the listeners, with FM just starting to "come of age".

Anyway, that's my two cents' worth. (Actually, nine cents, factoring in 40 years of inflation.)

A set of NIS sounders is also available here, courtesy of a 2009 upload by Tom Foty at the New York Broadcasting History Board

http://www.audiocenter.com/NIS.html

K.M. Richards said:

But the biggest reason for NIS' failure was NBC's lack of a total commitment to the format and to the network. In all but one of their O&O markets -- including New York, Chicago, and San Francisco -- they put NIS on their FM and then tried in vain to cross-promote it on their AMs ("now there's an all-news station on FM!"), when what they should have done was move the successful personality and music formats from their AMs to their FMs and gone all-news on the AM. The early 1970s was just too soon to try that on FM. They actually proved this themselves: The one market where they did install NIS on AM -- Washington DC, on WRC -- it got good ratings and local sales. And I think they were simulcasting the AM programming on the FM in the three markets I mentioned above anyway, so it could have been a gentle transition for the listeners, with FM just starting to "come of age".

Anyway, that's my two cents' worth. (Actually, nine cents, factoring in 40 years of inflation.)

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I have read that NBC tried to persuade WINS to become part of their operation in competition with WCBS but they turned it down, figuring they were doing quite fine with their local emphasis (which gave them the ratings advantage over WCBS I think). WNBC wasn't an option since the guy who came up with the whole NIS concept had also invested a lot in making WNBC a music station to go after WABC's audience (including an expensive hiring of DJ Bruce Morrow). That really left them only with what had been WNBC-FM (where "Monitor" had been banished to its final years in New York) to go with.