Satellite News Channel

Last updated

Satellite News Channel
SatelliteNewsChannellogo.jpg
CountryUnited States
Broadcast areaNationwide
Headquarters Stamford, Connecticut
Programming
Language(s) English
Picture format 480i (SDTV)
Ownership
OwnerABC Video Enterprises Inc. (American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.) /
Group W Satellite Communications
(Westinghouse Broadcasting Company)
History
LaunchedJune 21, 1982 (1982-06-21)
ClosedOctober 27, 1983 (1983-10-27)
(1 year, 4 months and 6 days)
Replaced by CNN Headline News
(assumed SNC's subscriber base on systems that carried the channel)

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. [1]

Contents

The channel's format consisted of 18-minute-long rotating newscasts with the remaining time in each half-hour block allocated for a regional news summary; this lent credence to SNC's slogan, "Give us 18 minutes, we'll give you the world," which was derived through Group W's experience in all-news radio. Each 18-minute national newscast featured content gathered from both in-house newsgathering and reporting staffs and reports sourced from international television networks that maintained content agreements with ABC/Group W to supply stories for the channel. [2] [3] The regional summaries were sectioned by "zones", and often originated from either ABC affiliates (such as KOMO-TV in Seattle) or Group W stations (such as KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh).

History

ABC Video Enterprises and Group W Satellite Communications announced the formation of the Satellite News Channel on August 12, 1981, with a tentative launch set for early 1982. [4] CNN founder Ted Turner subsequently announced plans to launch a spin-off service, CNN2 (later renamed CNN Headline News shortly after SNC's launch; it is now named HLN), which originally maintained a format similar to that being planned by the Satellite News Channel – albeit with newscasts running in 30-minute intervals – as a preemptive strike against the ABC/Group W venture. CNN2 made its launch on January 1, 1982, on participating cable systems across the county as well as through a sneak preview block on sister channel Superstation WTBS. [2]

Satellite News Channel launched on June 21, 1982. During that time, it provided competition for CNN, the first cable network to do so at the time.[ citation needed ] [5] The network utilized footage from ABC News for its reports and maintained seven newsgathering and reporting crews based in Washington, D.C. At launch, Satellite News Channel compensated participating cable operators to carry the channel, contrary to the standard of the period in which cable channels charged a nominal fee per subscriber for carriage. [6] Despite this model, SNC had difficulty obtaining clearance from cable systems. [5] The network and its satellite transponder space was eventually purchased by CNN's corporate parent, the Turner Broadcasting System. [4] Satellite News Channel ceased operations on October 27, 1983, after sixteen months on the air; most local cable systems replaced SNC with either CNN or, more commonly, CNN Headline News.

Notable staff

Reporters

Field correspondents

BusinessWeek

Meteorologists

Sportscasters

Entertainment

Graphic Designers

After the closure – successor channels

For a brief time after SNC shut down, its theme music was used by fellow Connecticut cable network ESPN.

Starting in 1989, All News Channel (ANC) was an American satellite television news channel owned by CONUS Communications, a joint venture between Viacom and Hubbard Broadcasting. The channel was carried mainly on direct-broadcast satellite provider DirecTV (and prior to that, USSB, which was folded into DirecTV in 1999). All News Channel's programming was also syndicated to television stations across the United States. The channel was headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota. The channel ceased broadcasting on September 30, 2002.

In 1996, ABC revealed plans to launch a 24-hour news channel but discontinued them after Fox News Channel and MSNBC were announced. [5]

In 2004, ABC News returned to the 24-hour news market with ABC News Now. The channel began as a digital subchannel but was later moved to cable. However that channel like SNC received little cable and satellite carriage, only being available on regional cable systems and Sprint's mobile devices. After nine years in operation, it was shut down.

In 2013 ABC News partnered with Univision Communications to launch Fusion, a new cable news channel focused on a Hispanic audience with shows skewed to a younger demographic which also includes satire and entertainment programs. The channel went live on October 28, 2013. The channel is ABC's third attempt at a cable news channel and their second partnership on one, the first since SNC. As far as distribution, Fusion has fared much better in respects to carriage than its two predecessors, securing both major satellite carriers and major cable operators in markets like New York City. ABC News' parent company, the Walt Disney Company, sold its stake in Fusion to Univision. It has since been owned by the Fusion Media Group, which is a division of Univision. Fusion ceased to exist at the end of 2021.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WAPA-TV</span> Independent TV station in San Juan, Puerto Rico

WAPA-TV is a Spanish-language independent television station in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is owned by WAPA Media Group. WAPA-TV's studios are located on Avenida Luis Vigoreaux in Guaynabo, and its transmitter is located at the WKAQ-TV transmission tower at Cerro La Santa in Cayey near the Bosque Estatal de Carite mountain reserve.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ABC News</span> News division of the American Broadcasting Company

ABC News is the news division of the American television network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ABC World News Tonight with David Muir; other programs include morning news-talk show Good Morning America, Nightline, Primetime, 20/20, and Sunday morning political affairs program This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WTVD</span> ABC TV station in Durham, North Carolina

WTVD is a television station licensed to Durham, North Carolina, United States, serving as the ABC outlet for the Research Triangle area. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, it maintains business offices and master control facilities on Liberty Street in downtown Durham, with newscasts originating from studios on Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh, as well as news bureaus in Chapel Hill and Fayetteville. The station's transmitter is located in Auburn, North Carolina. On-air branding uses ABC 11 as a station identifier, with the call letters taking a secondary role.

UniMás is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. The network's programming, which is aimed at Hispanic Americans in the 18–34 age range, includes telenovelas and other serialized drama series, sports, sitcoms, reruns of imported series previously aired on parent network Univision, reality and variety series, and theatrically released feature films.

NewsNation is an American subscription television network owned by the Nexstar Media Group, and is the company's only wholly owned, national cable-originated television channel. The channel runs a straight-news format for 24 hours on weekdays and eight hours on weekends, as well as entertainment programming taking up almost the entire weekend schedule. Known for most of its history as Superstation WGN before becoming WGN America in 2008, it relaunched on March 1, 2021, as a cable news network named after its flagship news program. The channel's relaunch came as part of a planned expansion of its news programming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">News broadcasting</span> Medium of broadcasting news events

News broadcasting is the medium of broadcasting various news events and other information via television, radio, or the internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or television studio newsroom, or by a broadcast network. A news broadcast may include material such as sports coverage, weather forecasts, traffic reports, political commentary, expert opinions, editorial content, and other material that the broadcaster feels is relevant to their audience. An individual news program is typically reported in a series of individual stories that are presented by one or more anchors. A frequent inclusion is live or recorded interviews by field reporters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WLKY</span> CBS affiliate in Louisville, Kentucky

WLKY is a television station in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, affiliated with CBS. The station is owned by Hearst Television, and maintains studios on Mellwood Avenue in the Clifton Heights section on Louisville's east side; its transmitter is located in rural northeastern Floyd County, Indiana.

WJLA 24/7 News is an American regional cable news television channel in Washington D.C. by ABC-affiliated station WJLA-TV owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. The channel provides 24-hour news coverage primarily focused on Washington, D.C., northern Virginia and suburban areas of Maryland within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The channel shares studio facilities and offices with WJLA-TV and the Rosslyn-based Circa News in Arlington, Virginia. WJLA 24/7 News reaches more than 1.2 million cable television households within the D.C metropolitan area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KIMA-TV</span> CBS/CW affiliate in Yakima, Washington

KIMA-TV is a television station in Yakima, Washington, United States, affiliated with CBS and The CW Plus. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside low-power, Class A Univision affiliate KUNW-CD. The two stations share studios on Terrace Heights Boulevard in Yakima; KIMA-TV's transmitter is located on Ahtanum Ridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WPCH-TV</span> CW affiliate in Atlanta

WPCH-TV, branded on-air as Peachtree TV, is a television station in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by locally based Gray Television alongside CBS affiliate and company flagship WANF, and low-power, Class A Telemundo affiliate WKTB-CD. WPCH-TV and WANF share studios on 14th Street Northwest in Atlanta's Home Park neighborhood; WPCH-TV's transmitter is located in the Woodland Hills section of northeastern Atlanta.

CBS Telenoticias was a subscription news television channel operated by CBS, headquartered in Miami. It was the first news channel to broadcast its programming in Spanish and Portuguese languages to Latin America.

U-verse TV is an internet protocol television (IPTV) service operated by DirecTV. Launched on June 26, 2006, U-verse was originally a triple play package that included broadband Internet, IP telephone, and IPTV services in 22 states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">All News Channel</span> Former American satellite television news channel

All News Channel (ANC) is an former American satellite television news channel & a website that was a joint venture between Viacom and CONUS Communications, itself a division of Hubbard Broadcasting. The channel was carried mainly on direct-broadcast satellite provider DirecTV (and prior to that, USSB, which was folded into DirecTV in 1999). All News Channel's programming was also syndicated to television stations across the United States. The channel was headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, out of the facility of Hubbard's flagship station KSTP-TV (channel 5), the ABC affiliate for the Minneapolis–St. Paul market. The channel ceased broadcasting on September 30, 2002.

Noticias Univision is the news division of Univision, an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by the Univision Television Group division of TelevisaUnivision. The news division is based out of the network's facilities, referred to as the "NewsPort", in the Miami suburb of Doral, Florida, which it shares with sister English language news channel Fusion and Univision's flagship owned-and-operated station WLTV-DT.

In the United States, owned-and-operated television stations constitute only a portion of their parent television networks' station bodies, due to ownership limits imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Currently, the total number of television stations owned by any company can only reach a maximum of 39% of all U.S. households; in the past, the ownership limit was much lower, and was determined by a specific number of television stations rather than basing the limits on total market coverage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Univision</span> American Spanish-language free-to-air television network

Univision is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the Latino public and includes telenovelas and other drama series, sports, sitcoms, reality and variety series, news programming, and imported Spanish-language feature films. Univision is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, and has its major studios, production facilities, and business operations based in Doral, Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States cable news</span> News disseminated through cable television networks

Cable news channels are television networks devoted to television news broadcasts, with the name deriving from the proliferation of such networks during the 1980s with the advent of cable television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Satellite television in the United States</span>

Currently, there are two primary satellite television providers of subscription based service available to United States consumers: DirecTV and Dish Network, which have 21 and 10 million subscribers respectively.

Fusion TV was an American pay television news and satire channel owned by Fusion Media Group, a multi-platform media company subsidiary of Univision Communications, which relied in part on the resources of its parent company's news division, Noticias Univision. In addition to conventional television distribution, Fusion was streamed online and on mobile platforms to subscribers of participating cable and satellite providers.

References

  1. ↑ Slocum, Bill (June 15, 1997). "Cable TV Finds A Stamford Home". New York Times. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
  2. 1 2 Clark, Kenneth R. (August 21, 1981). "Ted Turner responds to network challenge". Ellensburg Daily Record. Vol. 80, no. 198. UPI. p. 13. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
  3. ↑ One-Two Punch, Time.com, August 24, 1981, archived from the original on December 7, 2008, retrieved July 30, 2006
  4. 1 2 Harrigan, Kathryn Rudie (January 1, 1985). Joint Ventures, Alliances, and Corporate Strategy (reprint ed.). Beard Books. pp. 169–170. ISBN   1587981955 . Retrieved April 13, 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 Ariens, Chris (May 7, 2012). "ABC News and Univision to Launch 24-Hour News Channel". TVNewser. Ad Week Network. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
  6. ↑ "Cable TV becoming "gold mine' industry". Sunday Star-News. Vol. 52, no. 37. N.Y. Times News Service. May 16, 1982. p. 4B. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.