Radio network news

[Garrett Wollman <wollman@lcs.mit.edu>]

<<On Sun, 27 Oct 2002 16:43:57 -0500, "Daniel Murphy" <danmurph@worldnet.att.net> said:

> When WBZ goes to network news at the top of the hour late at night it's from
> CBS, but their special reports for big breaking stories are often from ABC.
> What is a typical arrangement for a radio station's network news affiliation
> and who makes money out of the deal?

Stations must pay a fee (for the good networks) and also clear the
network's commercial inventory to a contractually-specified audience
(except for AP which does not do barter).

The reason WBZ has the ABC-I affiliation is two-fold:

- WBZ was an ABC-I affiliate long before WBZ's parent company bought
CBS.

- WBZ wants to keep the competition from getting Paul Harvey.

In order to get Harvey, who is syndicated by ABC, stations must join
one of the ABC networks and clear the network spot load.  ABC
Information affiliates have first dibs on Harvey (and a lot of other
ABC news and feature product).  If they have to run the spots anyway,
why not get the benefit of the news organization as well?

Even though WBZ and CBS Radio are operated by the same company,
accounting rules mean that that affiliation must be paid for somehow
as well, although I don't know if the station management ever has to
deal with those numbers.  It's more complicated in the case of CBS
Radio because of a deal which was done several years back to integrate
the operations of CBS Radio and Westwood One.  Although WON still
legally exists as a separate company, its actual operations are
conducted under contract by CBS, and I don't know in all this which
company actually legally owns CBS Radio.

-GAWollman