- This article is about the American news organization.
For the Australian news organisation by the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation, see ABC
News . For other uses see ABC News .
ABC News is a news organizing and broadcasting division of American
television network
ABC.
History
ABC began news broadcasts early in its independent existence as a
radio network after the FCC ordered the former NBC
Blue Network to be spun off as an independent
company in 1943. This was done to keep single or a few companies
such as NBC and CBS from dominating radio broadcasting in the
United States, and in particular, from dominating news and
political broadcasting and projecting narrow points-of-view.
Television
Broadcasting was
suspended however, during
World War
II.
Regular
ABC television news broadcasts began soon after ABC started
transmitting from its initial New York City
TV station and production center in late summer
1948. ABC-TV news broadcasts have continued as the ABC
television network spread across the country, a process that took
many years, from that beginning in 1948 through today, but they
have not always had the same level of success that they enjoy now.
Throughout the 1950s, the 1960s, and the early 1970s, ABC News
consistently ranked third in viewership behind
CBS News and
NBC News.
Until the 1970s, the ABC-TV network had fewer affiliate stations,
and also weaker prime-time programming lineups to support the
network's news departments than the two larger networks had, each
of which had established their radio news operations during the
1930s.
It wasn't until
Roone Arledge, the
former head of ABC-TV Sports broadcasting, became the president of
ABC News in 1977, at a time when this network's prime-time
entertainment programs were achieving good ratings and drawing in
advertising revenues and profits to the ABC corporation overall,
that this network was first able to invest the resources to make it
a major source of news telecasting. Arledge, known for
experimenting with the broadcast "model," created many of ABC News'
most popular and enduring programs, including
20/20,
World News Tonight,
This Week,
Nightline, and
Primetime Live.
ABC News
gained respect in the early 1980s by covering the Iran hostage crisis and, later, for
covering the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
in the San Francisco Bay Area
with live telecasts.
Arledge turned ABC News into a broadcasting titan, regularly
defeating his rivals
NBC and
CBS. ABC-TV itself remained dominant for over two
decades, while in the news department, the late
Peter Jennings was the principal anchor of a
news department that had become a lot more significant, though
always in third place in the ratings. The ABC network remains a
strong competitor today, running close to and sometimes surpassing
the audience levels of its rival NBC-TV both in the crucial morning
time slot and in the evening newscast race.
The ABC News slogan, "More Americans get their news from ABC News
than from any other source", is a claim that refers to the number
of people who watch, listen, and read ABC News programming on
television, the radio, and the Internet, and not necessarily to the
telecasts alone.
ESPN, also owned by Disney, provides sports
bulletins and video for some of ABC's newscasts, especially the
overnight programs.
International broadcasts
ABC News programming is shown daily on the 24 hour news network
Orbit News in Europe and the Middle East.
This includes several shows from ABC News. It's also available
online at ABC News Now.
ABC's World News appears
regularly at 1:30 am local time on the BBC News Channel in the U.K.
, which itself may be simulcast on BBC One or Two
during the overnight period. No commercials are presented,
since the BBC's services in the U.K. are financed through
license fees. ABC and the BBC also share video
segments and reporters as needed in producing their
newscasts.
In Australia,
ABC World News is
broadcast at 10:30am daily and the "
Nightline" program is telecast
at 1:30am daily on
Sky News
Australia.
In Australia, this can be confusing, because
there, "ABC News" means the news broadcasts of the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation
. Also, the "
Primetime" program is broadcast at
2:00 pm on Saturdays (Extended Edition) and at 1:30 pm on
Thursdays. The "
20/20" program is telecast at
2:00 pm on Sundays (Extended Edition) and on Wednesdays at 1:30
pm.In New Zealand,
ABC World News is
broadcast daily at 5:10 pm and at again 11:35 pm. Just as with the
BBC News in the U.K., these are shown without any ads (commercials)
on TVNZ's 7 network.
Other Forms of Broadcasting
ABC News Radio distributes,
through
Citadel Media, newscasts on
the hour, live feeds and specialty news programming to some 2,000
local affiliates.
ABC NewsOne is ABC News's affiliate news service.
It gathers and feeds regional, national and international news
material to ABC affiliates around the country and foreign
networks.
ABC News Now is the ABC's 24/7
news channel available online and other sources such as mobile
phones.
A 30 second "ABC News Brief" is broadcast weekdays at 2:58pm ET,
between
One Life to Live and
General Hospital. ABC News Briefs
formerly appeared during many programs, and had sponsorships
(similar to
NBC News
Update).
A news
brief containing information relevant to college students is shown
every hour on MtvU, and ABC News segments are
packaged or customized for broadcast over Wal-Mart
's in-store
television network.
See also
References
- The Walt Disney Internet Group Newsroom - Press
Releases - June 28, 2005
External links
Top topics
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
