Defunct news-oriented digital broadcast television network
This article is about the American television network. For the Canadian television channel formerly called CTV Newsnet, see CTV News Channel (Canadian TV channel).
NewsNet (stylized as NEWSnet) was an American news-orientedfree-to-airtelevision network and newscastproduction company owned by Bridge News, LLC, which itself is owned by Manoj Bhargava's Bridge Media Networks.[1] The network was structured to broadcast a tightly-formatted 30-minute newswheel 24 hours a day, incorporating freshly-updated information that covers various areas of interest (such as national news, sports, entertainment, weather and business). Breaking news stories were updated constantly as they developed and new information became available.
In addition to being carried on digital subchannels of affiliated television stations, NewsNet also distributed its programming through a livestream that is available on its website, as well as its mobile app in areas where it did not have a terrestrial TV affiliate. The network also provided an optional turnkey local news production service (Custom Newsroom Solutions) for stations that did not maintain their own local news departments to produce local news capsule segments or full-length newscasts. NewsNet's primary studio facilities (which also houses master control operations of the network's flagship station WMNN-LD [channel 26] and dual MyNetworkTV/Cozi TV affiliate WXII-LD [channel 12]) were located on West 13th Street and 3rd Avenue in Cadillac, while its secondary studio facilities were located on Haggerty Road in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
Background and history
NewsNet's first logo, used from 2019 to 2022.
On September 28, 2017, Eric Wotila – who founded low-power all-news station WMNN-LD in Cadillac, Michigan and oversaw the studio design and construction for News Channel Nebraska, a Norfolk, Nebraska-based quasi-state network of five low-power stations that also maintained an all-news programming format – started a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to fund the launch of a 24-hour national news channel – under the working title, the Local News Network (LNN) – intended for broadcast, online and mobile distribution.[2][3][4][5]
Citing favorable opinions from viewers about the "straight-to-the-facts, no-nonsense and commentary-free" coverage provided by WMNN-LD, the Local News Network proposed to offer a news wheel format (similar in structure to the 1982–2005 format of HLN, and the formats of defunct all-news networks such as All News Channel and Satellite News Channel) that would eschew the often-politically focused panel discussion programs that have populated the afternoon, nighttime and weekend schedules of cable news channels (particularly CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel) since the early 2000s. The project called for LNN to be based out of WMNN's Cadillac studio facility, with the hope of eventually opening bureaus elsewhere around the United States. The project failed to reach its funding goal of $100,000 needed to develop LNN – which would have been used to pay for equipment and staffing necessary to handle the national broadcasts – by the closure of the 50-day campaign on November 17, 2017, raising only $8,012 from 78 public backers. Wotila subsequently sought to obtain backing from investors to fund the venture.[2][3][4][5]
On March 15, 2018, Wotila and other partners involved in the LNN project announced the launch of NewsNet, which would maintain the concept originally developed prior to the commencement of the Kickstarter campaign.[6][7][8]
NewsNet signed on for the first time on January 1, 2019 at 7:00p.m. Eastern Time, with Evening Edition serving as the network's inaugural program. On May 8, 2019, ground was broken on new studios. The facility will consist of three studios, each with their own control rooms and a new, state-of-the-art master control room overseeing the operations of NewsNet, WMNN-LD and WXII-LP. The new studio debuted on-air at 4:00a.m. ET on December 9.[9]
Because of Wotila's involvement with News Channel Nebraska, NewsNet does not compete with NCN and has no affiliates in that state.
In 2020, NewsNet picked up agreements from Coastal Television's ABC & FOX stations in Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska to start producing newscasts for them due to the economic impact of COVID 19. Coastal would further expand the agreement to include their stations in Casper and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Coastal ended the agreements in early 2022 upon purchase of the NewsHub from Waypoint Media. Marquee Broadcasting signed an agreement in 2022 for their Georgia stations in Macon and Toccoa for production of a 9 PM newscast called Georgia's News at Nine. The Macon station ended the agreement upon the sale from Marquee to Gray Television and production for the Macon newscast was shifted over to WANF-TV. Production for Toccoa ended in 2023 after the partnership dissolved.
On January 13, 2022, NewsNet and the rest of Freelancer Television Broadcasting's portfolio, including WMNN-LD and WXII-LD, were sold to investor Manoj Bhargava, with Eric Wotila retaining 10% ownership in the new company Bridge News, LLC.[10] Under the terms of the deal, Bridge News would operate the stations via a time brokerage agreement with Freelancer Television Broadcasting.[11] The sale was consummated on March 24. Bhargava conceived the purchase as a means of advertising 5-hour Energy direct to the consumer and bypassing an increasingly cost-ineffective advertising market.[12]
On April 18, 2022, at exactly noon ET, NewsNet debuted a new logo, graphics package and slogan, News... as it used to be. A week later, on April 25, the network hired Phillip Hendrix, former senior producer at the Black News Channel, to serve as its news director, replacing Remington Hernandez (who will remain as the network's primary news anchor).[13] Hendrix was succeeded in July by Peter Ziemelis (a longtime executive producer at ABC affiliate WJRT-TV [channel 12] in Flint).
On May 16, 2022, NewsNet officially debuted a secondary studio facility in Farmington Hills and made several additions to its on-air team, including Detroit local news veterans Jill Washburn (formerly of CBS O&O WWJ-TV [channel 62] and Fox O&O WJBK [channel 2]) and Glenn Ray (formerly of WKBD-TV [channel 50]). Also on the same date, the network implemented major changes to its schedule: Mornings moved to a later timeslot at 6:00a.m. ET, while the weekday edition of Continuing Coverage reduced its running time from four hours to two (albeit remaining at the 4:00p.m. ET slot). The weekday broadcasts of Evening Edition, on the other hand, expanded to six hours beginning at 6:00p.m. ET, and Nightside Edition (which airs at midnight ET) also expanded to six hours with the addition of a two-hour block at 4:00 a.m. ET. The running times of Midday Edition (which airs at noon ET) and the weekend broadcasts of Continuing Coverage and Evening Edition would remain unchanged.
On August 6, 2022, NewsNet debuted Weekend Edition, an all-weekend rolling news block that compiles the biggest headlines of the past week but retaining the network's signature newswheel format (over time, it evolved to a traditional format). The new program replaced the weekend broadcasts of Mornings, Midday Edition, Continuing Coverage, Evening Edition, and Nightside Edition.
In the 4th week of September 2022, Bridge Media Networks announced it would acquire several LPTV stations in Las Vegas (KDNU-LD),[14] South Florida (WDGT-LD, WHMR-LD and WKIZ-LD)[15] and Detroit (WHNE-LD).[16] Upon the completion of the transactions, the company will convert these stations into NewsNet O&Os.
In August 2023, Bhargava announced that NewsNet parent company Bridge Media Networks would be merging with Ross Levinsohn's The Arena Group, publisher of Sports Illustrated, and owner of Men's Fitness, Men's Journal and other publications, with Bhargava as the majority investor.[17] Bhargava's plans to integrate Sports Illustrated content onto NewsNet and Sports News Highlights were foiled when the magazine's trademark holder revoked The Arena Group's license and granted it to a competitor, Minute Media; the legal dispute was unresolved at the time of the television networks' closure.[12]
On the morning of August 2, 2024, the network abruptly laid off its entire staff of 80 workers and shut down, stating that nobody was watching the channels: "We believed people would want to watch a clean, non-bias news network, but we were wrong."[18] Following the layoffs, the streaming services for the network continue to run, airing a mix of up-to-date automated ticker content combined with reruns of the networks' most recent broadcasts, until it was removed a few days later.[12]
Broadcast feeds
The national NewsNet service operated two separate broadcast feeds at the time of its closure:
Domestic – the network's official feed, providing 165 hours of rolling-news coverage each week. The domestic feed also contains U.S.-only content, particularly during commercial breaks. These include locally-targeted advertisements, network promos, and a 90-minute block of educational children's programming on Saturday and Sunday mornings at 10:30a.m. ET to comply with programming guidelines imposed by the federally-mandated Children's Television Act. NewsNet's domestic feed is available to U.S. viewers, over-the-air, through affiliated local television stations.
Online – almost identical to the domestic feed, but provides opt-outs during domestic-only content (including a 90-minute extension of the Weekend Edition morning block on Saturdays and Sundays at 10:30 a.m. ET and a two-minute interstitial segment during commercial breaks entitled Top Stories from the Newsroom [subject to preemptions due to online ad inserts]). NewsNet's online feed is available in the U.S. through various over-the-top (OTT) streaming platforms and a downloadable app for Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and Roku streaming devices, and worldwide on the network's website and iOS/Android apps.
Programming
NewsNet's programming is structured around a rolling news wheel format, providing up-to-date information on the top national and international stories in just 30 minutes.
Each half-hour of the wheel format begins with the "A" block, which features a nearly 12-minute rundown of the latest news headlines (with updated details provided when breaking news develops).
The remainder of each half-hour includes a national weather forecast summary (at 12 and 42 minutes past the hour; branded as Weather Report), the latest sports highlights and scores (at 17 and 47 minutes past the hour; primarily utilizing talent from its sister network, Sports News Highlights), and topical news segments focusing on health, business, entertainment, and other subjects (at 24 and 54 minutes past the hour).[19]
As of April 2023[update], NewsNet has current and pending full-time affiliation agreements with 59 television stations in 49 television markets encompassing 24 states, covering 27.21% of the United States.[20] The majority of NewsNet affiliates are low-power stations that are within the geographic boundaries of a particular TV market, but do not cover the entirety of the market.
In addition to allowing affiliates to sell local advertising (offering four minutes of local commercial time per hour to prospective stations), NewsNet provides the option for its broadcast affiliates to pre-empt the national weather segment to allow to carry their own local weather cut-ins (either produced by the network or by affiliate stations themselves), as well as feature segments at the end of each half hour to allow to carry a five-minute-long local headline "capsule", providing news and other timely information focusing on the local viewing area.[19][21][6][7][8]
Final affiliates
Affiliates of NewsNet, including stations owned by Bridge Media Networks[20]
WXII-TV is a television station licensed to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States, serving the Piedmont Triad region as an affiliate of NBC. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside Lexington-licensed CW affiliate WCWG. WXII-TV and WCWG share studios on Coliseum Drive in Winston-Salem; through a channel sharing agreement, the stations transmit using WXII-TV's spectrum from an antenna on Sauratown Mountain in Stokes County.
WCWG is a television station licensed to Lexington, North Carolina, United States, serving the Piedmont Triad region as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside Winston-Salem–licensed NBC affiliate WXII-TV. WCWG and WXII-TV share studios on Coliseum Drive in Winston-Salem; through a channel sharing agreement, the stations transmit using WXII-TV's spectrum from an antenna on Sauratown Mountain in Stokes County.
WUMN-LD is a low-power television station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, serving the Twin Cities area as an affiliate of the Spanish-language network Univision. Owned by Bridge Media Networks, the station maintains a transmitter atop the Campbell Mithun Tower on South 9th Street in downtown Minneapolis.
WSCG is a religious television station licensed to Baxley, Georgia, United States, serving the Savannah area as an owned-and-operated station of Tri-State Christian Television (TCT). The station's studios are located on Sams Point Road in Beaufort, South Carolina, and its transmitter is located on Fort Argyle Road/SR 204 in unincorporated western Chatham County, Georgia. WSCG is one of a few TCT owned-and-operated stations to maintain its own studio facilities as other TCT O&Os ended their local operations in 2018.
KTUZ-TV is a television station licensed to Shawnee, Oklahoma, United States, serving the Oklahoma City area as an affiliate of the Spanish-language network Telemundo. It is the flagship station of locally based Tyler Media Group, and is co-owned with Woodward-licensed Univision affiliate KUOK, channel 36, and low-power Estrella TV affiliate KOCY-LD. The stations share studios near Southeast 51st Street and Shields Boulevard in south Oklahoma City, while KTUZ-TV's transmitter is located near 86th Street and Ridgeway Road in northeast Oklahoma City.
WDVM-TV is an independent television station licensed to Hagerstown, Maryland, United States, serving the Washington, D.C., television market. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside CW owned-and-operated station WDCW. The two stations share studios on Wisconsin Avenue in the Glover Park section of Washington; WDVM-TV's transmitter is located on Fairview Mountain, west of Clear Spring, Maryland.
KCSO-LD is a low-power television station in Sacramento, California, United States, serving as the local outlet for the Spanish-language network Telemundo. Owned and operated by NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group, KCSO-LD maintains studios on Media Place in the Woodlake neighborhood of Sacramento, and its transmitter is located in Walnut Grove, California. The station is also sister to regional sports networks NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports California.
WKAG-CA was a low-power, Class A television station in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, United States. The station was owned by local cable television provider NewWave Communications.
KXOK-LD was a low-power television station in Enid, Oklahoma, United States. Its broadcast license was cancelled by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2016.
WXII-LD is a low-power television station in Cedar, Michigan, United States, serving the Traverse City–Cadillac area with programming from Cozi TV and MyNetworkTV. Owned by Bridge Media Networks, it is sister to Lake City-licensed NewsNet flagship WMNN-LD. Both stations share studios on West 13th Street in Cadillac, while WXII-LD's transmitter is located west of downtown Traverse City near Harris and Cedar Run roads.
WZBJ-CD is a low-power, Class A television station licensed to Lynchburg, Virginia, United States. It is a translator of Danville-licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate WZBJ which is owned by Gray Television; the WZBJ stations collectively serve as a sister outlet to Roanoke-licensed CBS affiliate WDBJ. WZBJ-CD's transmitter is located on Candlers Mountain near the campus of the station's former owner, Liberty University; its parent station shares studios with WDBJ on Hershberger Road in northwest Roanoke.
KVVV-LD is a low-power television station in Houston, Texas, United States, affiliated with the home shopping network ShopHQ. The station is owned by Bridge News LLC, backed by entrepreneur Manoj Bhargava. KVVV-LD's transmitter is located near Missouri City, in unincorporated northeastern Fort Bend County.
WBXZ-LD is a low-power television station in Buffalo, New York, United States. The station is owned by Manoj Bhargava.
WMNN-LD is a low-power television station licensed to Lake City, Michigan, United States, serving the Cadillac–Traverse City area as an affiliate of the home shopping network ShopHQ. It is owned by Bridge Media Networks alongside dual MyNetworkTV/Cozi TV affiliate WXII-LD. The two stations share studios on West 13th Street in Cadillac; WMNN-LD's transmitter is located off M-55 east of the city.
KNPN-LD is a low-power television station in St. Joseph, Missouri, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is the flagship television property of the locally based News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG), and is co-owned with NBC/CW+/Telemundo affiliate KNPG-LD, CBS affiliate KCJO-LD and local news and weather channel News-Press NOW; this arrangement also places the four outlets under the same ownership as the St. Joseph News-Press newspaper.
KNPG-LD is a low-power television station in St. Joseph, Missouri, United States, affiliated with NBC, The CW Plus and Telemundo. It is owned by the locally based News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG) alongside fellow flagship properties, Fox affiliate KNPN-LD and CBS affiliate KCJO-LD. The three stations share studios at News-Press & Gazette's corporate headquarters on Edmond Street in downtown St. Joseph; KNPG-LD's transmitter is located on South 16th Street, just southeast of downtown.
WNBJ-LD is a low-power television station in Jackson, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW Plus. The station is owned by Coastal Television Holdings, and maintains studios on North Highland Avenue and a transmitter near the corner of Commerce and Iselin streets, both in downtown Jackson.
KXJB-LD is a low-power television station licensed to Horace, North Dakota, United States, serving the Fargo–Grand Forks market as an affiliate of CBS and The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Television alongside NBC affiliate KVLY-TV. The two stations share studios on 21st Avenue South in Fargo, where KXJB-LD's transmitter is also located.
KMNF-LD is a low-power television station in Mankato, Minnesota, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Television alongside dual CBS and Fox affiliate KEYC-TV. The two stations share studios on Lookout Drive in North Mankato; KMNF-LD's transmitter is located near Lewisville, Minnesota.
WCMN-LD is a low-power television station licensed to both St. Cloud and Sartell, Minnesota, United States, which primarily broadcasts religious programming. Owned by StarCom, LLC, the station maintains a transmitter on Julep Road in Waite Park, Minnesota.
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