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When Did Networks Go Around The Clock?

JoeyBabe25 asked: said:
One wonders how the radio webs handled the shooting of Robert Kennedy in 1968. It happened about 3am EDT in L.A., and while the west coast was certainly hot (and I think the tv networks were nationwide) what about the radio networks on the east coast?
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It was the night of the 1968 California Presidential Primary (polls there having closed at 11 P.M. EDT; 8 PDT), so the networks may have planned to stay on the air to provide updates (or extended live coverage) until after the winning candidates in each party had made their acceptance speeches. Thus, I suspect ABC's four sub-networks, CBS, Mutual, and NBC were still "on the air" in the East and were able to switch to correspondents in the Ambassador Hotel, then of course, to continue nonstop coverage well into the day on Wednesday.
 
It should be noted that when it started Monitor ran continuously from 8am Saturday to midnight Sunday (40 hours) including overnight Saturday night-Sunday morning.
 
I worked at an NBC Radio affiliate in Arizona in 1969 and their last news out of New York was 11 pm Eastern, or as they used to tell affiliates 11 pm New York Time. Later newscasts came out of San Francisco, as mentioned earlier.

A friend of mine worked at an ABC affiliate and I spent some time in the production room listening to the network. This was the early seventies, so there were no newscasts in the late evening. Instead the network ran music which was interrupted for a minute or so at :15 and :45. A voice came on to advise stations if anything was happening that warranted news coverage.

When Robert Kennedy was assassinated a friend of mine was working at a station that had UPI Audio. He worked the overnight shift which carried Herb Jepko's Nitecap on a one hour delay. This was BEFORE Mutual carried the show and this station was the only affiliate Nitecap had.

Anyway, he tried to call me to help him monitor the audio channel while he played down tempo music. Naturally, KSL went to CBS Radio coverage and when that coverage started playing on this station the local CBS station called and said not to carry that feed. (Especially since it was an hour behind.)

Anyway, I never made it over to the station to assist, UPI started their coverage and it was put on the air.
 
Monitor ran continuously from 8am Saturday to midnight Sunday (40 hours) including overnight Saturday night-Sunday morning.
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Well, not exactly. MONITOR was live 8:00 AM to 11:00 PM Saturday, 9:00 AM until 10:00 PM Sunday. The other hours were re-feeds. Unless there was breaking news during a segment, the continuity was not time sensitive, so a stationi could ru it overnight if they wished. But it was not wall-to-wall for 40 hours each weekend. If I remember correctly the grid I saw once of their scheduled, Eastern was the only truly live the first hour, then the seecond hour Central came on, the Mountain and finally Pacific so that the Saturday 11:00 AM and the Sunday noon segment were the first to go the full network. The Central, Mountain and Pacific stations picked up the repeaated feeds to fill out their commitment.

NBC Radio's last TOH news on Sunday was at 9:00, because THE HOUR OF DECISION came on at 10:00 Eastern).
 
Re: Monitor. If you've read the great book about this program service there were live hosts in the overnight hours during some of its broadcast life. It's called Monitor: The Last Great Radio Show, and it's by Dennis Hart. There was a lot of stuff in the book I didn't even know! ;-)
 
Joseph_Gallant said:
It was the night of the 1968 California Presidential Primary (polls there having closed at 11 P.M. EDT; 8 PDT), so the networks may have planned to stay on the air to provide updates (or extended live coverage) until after the winning candidates in each party had made their acceptance speeches. Thus, I suspect ABC's four sub-networks, CBS, Mutual, and NBC were still "on the air" in the East and were able to switch to correspondents in the Ambassador Hotel, then of course, to continue nonstop coverage well into the day on Wednesday.
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As I recall from having listened to the WCCO CBS coverage (http://www.radiotapes.com/specialpostings.html#RFK, some really great stuff), it was some time before the network came on with coverage. The initial bulletins were wire service reports read by 'CCO's overnight host Franklin Hobbs, interspersed between "beautiful music" instrumentals (a change from what Hobbs had been playing prior to the bulletin), and it took awhile before they picked up what sounds like KNX's coverage (at first) and then a transition to CBS' continuous coverage. Based on that, it sounds as if local stations might have been pretty much on their own for a good time before the nets took over.
 
I've slept since the 70s, but as I recall ABC fed music (sometimes WABC or WPLJ) down the line between programs. Affiliates could listen in I believe at :15 and :45 during the overnight hours to get any updates that might have happened. The one time I heard it was something like "I'm Joe Blow, ABC News New York. There are no new developments at this time". When all 4 networks went 24 hours, the four nets were covered by just 2 anchors, one of them I recall being Tim O'Donnell. I believe it was one of them doing both Info and Entertainment, another handling Contemporary and FM. Before going 24 hours, IIRC the last newscasts were in the midnight hour with one more Information newscast at 1am ET. I could certainly be wrong.
 
NBC ran the NOH at 9:55 on Sunday Nights. If the Affilliiate didn't carry Hour Of Decision at 10:00PM they could hold it till 10:00 or run it at 9:55. WSB carried it at 9:55 into the Hour of Decision at 10:00.
 
In 1966, I was with an FM station that carried many of the shows from the Mutual Broadcasting System - including the news both on the hour and half-hour. Although the station usually signed off in the early evening, I did see a list of Mutual's scheduled feeds. They had a late-night show that was called, "Music Beyond The Stars" although I don't know if this lasted all night or not.
 
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gr8oldies said:
"I'm Joe Blow, ABC News New York
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Joe Vaughn ABC News, he would appreciate it! They couldn't run a News Network with 2 people, back then?

Bill Beutel - NY * Al Adle - NY Bill Owen - NY
Nick Alexander - NY Irv Chapman - NY Lou Leslie - LA
Roger Peterson John Rolfson - Was Jeff Michaels
David Gafney David Garcia - Wash Beth Conrad - NY
Tim O'Donnell - NY * Ed Kane - NY Leida Snow - NY
Gilbert Hodges - NY Harold Steele - NY LaVonne Ellis
Dick Kulp - NY Gil Fox - NY Karen Gray - NY
Bill Touhy - NY Breck Ardery - NY Wes Richards
Bettina Gregory - NY Paul Coughlin - NY Dave Cooke - NY
Joe Vaughn - NY Bill Jackson - NY Gil Gross - NY
Sam Depino - NY David Heller - LA Ted David - NY
Jo Berkey - NY Jim Branch - NY Bill Stoller - NY
Chuck Sivertson - NY Ann Compton - Wash
John Loyd - NY Geraldo Rivera


http://user.pa.net/~ejjeff/abcmain2.html
 
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jovialjay said:
Many nights, the later hour Information newscasts were done by Merrill Muller from Los Angeles.
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I worked at a station that did ABC Information Network news and the last cast was at 1:00AM. I did 2-3-4- and 5 before the morning guys came in. Seems like it was that way in 1976 and 1977, the station went with AP audio so they didn't have to clear all the ABC spots during the day. We dropped Paul Harvey, wow you should have seen all the phone calls that generated!!!
 
cjwest said:
NBC ran the NOH at 9:55 on Sunday Nights. If the Affilliiate didn't carry Hour Of Decision at 10:00PM they could hold it till 10:00 or run it at 9:55. WSB carried it at 9:55 into the Hour of Decision at 10:00.
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When was this? NBC was running the final hour of Sunday Night Monitor which ended at 10 Eastern. When Monitor ended, NBC was running NIS.
 
Hot Hits said:
They couldn't run a News Network with 2 people, back then?

Not everybody was on the air. Typically, ABC Radio had an editor and writers' assigned to prepare copy for each "network." Apparently during off-hours, they cut back and decided each "network" did not need unique copy. Now, of course, ABC does not "customize" news for various formats; different spots but not different news.
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