United Press International Television News, abbreviated as UPITN, was a television news agency, operating from 1967 to 1985. It was the successor to earlier UPI television news film operations United Press Movietone and United Press International Newsfilm. It was at the forefront of international television newsgathering and had a vast network of foreign bureaus around the world with film crews capturing images of the events and people that defined the era.
United Press International Television News and Visnews were the two largest and most important television news agencies at the time.
In 1985, after UPI sold its interest, it was renamed Worldwide Television News , or WTN. In 1998 WTN was bought out by the 'Associated Press', to become Associated Press Television News .
The agreement between United Press and Fox-Movietone to shoot newsfilm for television stations was announced on July 13, 1948. [1] United Press Movietone, or UPMT, was pioneering in providing a dedicated newsfilm service to television stations in the United States. UPMT introduced crucial innovations and procedures that became intrinsic to the business of motion picture newsgathering for television. UPMT grew steadily and became the first television news agency to operate on a truly international level with the BBC as its first European client. In 1958, an auxiliary service, originally called UPI Audio, was created to make newsmaker and reporter audio from the film service available to UPI radio clients. [2]
On 30 September 1963 UPI and Movietone ended their partnership. Movietone briefly stayed in the theatrical newsreel field while UPI set up a new corporate entity, UPI-Newsfilm (UPIN), with headquarters in London and New York. UPIN took on staff cameramen around the world, very often former Movietone staff, now on the UPI payroll. The client list continued to expand as new stations around the world commenced broadcasting.
UPI, having broken away from Movietone, believed it essential to team up with another major partner. The pressure to find a big client/partner increased when UPIN lost its BBC contract. ITN was the obvious choice, but it took four years before UPI actually joined with ITN to form UPITN in June 1967. The company entered its most prolific decade. UPI, however, was plagued by financial difficulties that had negative consequences for UPITN. In the early eighties, UPITN was acquired by ABC (the American Broadcasting Company) which shared ownership with ITN (London's Independent Television News). Australia's Nine Network owned 10% of the network, which was renamed Worldwide Television News (WTN). In the early nineties, ABC purchased another 30% of the company from ITN. The Disney Company acquired ABC in 1995 and in 1998, resold the company to Associated Press Television News (APTN).
The copyright to the UPIN/UPITN archive is held by Associated Press Television News, which acquired WTN. It is managed through APTN's stock footage licensing division, AP Archive. Although the films themselves have been well preserved, the numerous pieces of text catalogue that accompanied them were scattered across various locations in the UK and US. The text catalogue is essential as it identifies what footage is held in each film can and without it, the archive has been virtually inaccessible since the day the films were first produced. Twenty-thousand film cans containing 3,500 hours of international news footage have been lying dormant for decades deep underground in the Central London bunker. AP Archive assembled a team of archival researchers to create a coherent online text database. The films themselves are being cleaned and restored by Éclair Laboratoires of Paris, and then transferred onto high definition videotape for use by professional producers.
The Fox Film Corporation was an American independent film production studio formed by William Fox (1879–1952) in 1915, by combining his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attraction Company.
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th century until its eventual decline beginning in the early 1980s. At its peak, it had more than 6,000 media subscribers. Since the first of several sales and staff cutbacks in 1982, and the 1999 sale of its broadcast client list to its main U.S. rival, the Associated Press, UPI has concentrated on smaller information-market niches.
A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, information, and entertainment for millions of moviegoers. Newsreels were typically exhibited preceding a feature film, but there were also dedicated newsreel theaters in many major cities in the 1930s and ’40s, and some large city cinemas also included a smaller theaterette where newsreels were screened continuously throughout the day.
Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based media production and broadcast journalism company. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, New York, Paris, Sydney and Washington, D.C.
Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc. is an American television and radio broadcasting corporation based in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was founded by Stanley E. Hubbard.
Movietone News was a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States. Under the name British Movietone News, it also ran in the United Kingdom from 1929 to 1986, in France also produced by Fox-Europa, in Spain in the early 1930s as Noticiario Fox Movietone before being replaced by No-Do, in Australia and New Zealand until 1970, and Germany as Fox Tönende Wochenschau. An Indian version called Indian Movietone News ran in 1942 and 1943 before getting replaced by Indian News Parade.
The Canadian Press is a Canadian national news agency headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Established in 1917 as a vehicle for the time's Canadian newspapers to exchange news and information, The Canadian Press has been a private, not-for-profit cooperative owned and operated by its member newspapers for most of its history. In mid-2010, however, it announced plans to become a for-profit business owned by three media companies once certain conditions were met.
Associated Press Television News, also referred to as AP Video and AP Television News, is a global video news agency operated by the Associated Press (AP).
Originally named "UPI Audio," the United Press International Radio Network was a news service for radio and television stations from wire service United Press International. It was the first such service offered by a major news agency and existed from 1958 to 1999.
Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC), originally British International Pictures (BIP), was a British film production, distribution and exhibition company active from 1927 until 1970 when it was absorbed into EMI. ABPC also owned approximately 500 cinemas in Britain by 1943, and in the 1950s and 60s owned a station on the ITV television network. The studio was partly owned by Warner Bros. from about 1940 until 1969; the American company also owned a stake in ABPC's distribution arm, Warner-Pathé, from 1958. It formed one half of a vertically integrated film industry duopoly in Britain with the Rank Organisation.
Satellite News Channel (SNC) was an American short-lived news-based cable television channel that was operated as a joint venture between the ABC Video Enterprises division of American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. (a.k.a. ABC) and the Group W Satellite Communications subsidiary of Westinghouse Broadcasting Company (a.k.a. Group W). Designed as a satellite-delivered cable network, the channel is best remembered as the first 24-hour news cable competition to the Cable News Network (CNN). SNC's headquarters were based in the New York City suburb of Stamford, Connecticut.
World News may refer to one of the following sources that covers international news:
Stewart Peter Purvis CBE is a British broadcaster, broadcasting executive, author and academic.
Visnews was a London-based international news agency. It began as the British Commonwealth International Newsfilm Agency (BCINA), which was setup with help from The Rank Organisation when that company closed its cinema newsreel operation. The original headquarters in School Road, Acton, London NW10, had formerly been a Rank Laboratory. The founder shareholder broadcasters were the ABC (Australia), the BBC, CBC (Canada) CYBC (Cyprus) and NZBC.
The Bay Area Television Archive (BATA) is a regional moving image archive. It preserves and digitally restores 16mm newsfilm, documentaries and other shows produced by TV stations in Northern California (1948–2005), local Emmy Award-winning programs (1974–2005) and privately donated film collections (1939–2004).
Burton Reinhardt was an American journalist and news executive, who served as executive Vice President of CNN from 1980 to 1982 and the second President of CNN from 1982 to 1990. In his capacity as vice president, Reinhardt helped to hire most of CNN's first 200 employees, including the cable network's first news anchor, Bernard Shaw.
Fox News was the original newsreel established by movie mogul William Fox. It was eventually replaced by Fox's pioneering sound newsreel, Fox Movietone News, which began regular operations in December 1927.
Streamworks International S.A is a privately held company owned by Ocean Group International and headquartered in Luxembourg, Luxembourg, with operational offices located in London, United Kingdom, and New York City, New York, United States.
This is a timeline of the history of ITN, a British production company providing news programmes for British broadcasters.
Television News Inc. (TVN) was an American syndicated news service, providing daily feeds of newsfilm to subscribing television stations in the United States and Canada between 1973 and 1975. Majority-owned by the Coors Brewing Company of Golden, Colorado, TVN was among the first services of its kind to cater to the growing number of independent stations producing newscasts. However, it lost millions of dollars throughout its run, being unable to carry out a proposed shift to satellite distribution that would have made it a pioneer in the field, and it also came under fire for being positioned by owner and financial backer Joseph Coors as a conservative alternative to the three major networks, whose news output he deemed "liberal". Coors's ownership of TVN and refusal to step down from the post was instrumental in the United States Senate's rejection of his nomination to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in 1975.