Boston and ABC Radio

[Sid Schweiger]

"Considering that the rule that caused NBC to have to spin off the Blue
Network made it illegal for one company to own multiple networks that
OPERATED SIMULTANEOUSLY, ABC's decision to split its feed four ways
was a stroke of pure genius! There was no simultaneous transmission;"

ABC requested and received a ruling from the FCC that the four-network setup would not violate the "chain-broadcasting" rules under which NBC was ordered to divest one of its networks, since the network feeds used one circuit and would not air simultaneously.

"IIRC, the TOH feed continued and new feeds were initiated at ;25, :30, and :55."

Not quite.  As a vacation-relief engineer for ABC Radio in the 1970's, I remember the schedule as if it were yesterday (and still have a copy of a daily program log from that era):

:00  American Information Radio main newscast (15 minutes at 6AM, 11AM and 6PM ET, otherwise 5 minutes)
:06  American Information Radio features (mostly sports)
:15  American FM Radio main newscast (5 minutes)
:25  American Contemporary Radio features (Howard Cosell "Speaking of Sports," 3.5 minutes at 8:25 AM and 5:25 PM ET)
:30  American Entertainment Radio main newscast (5 minutes, preempted for Paul Harvey News & Comment at 8:30 AM [5 minutes] and 12:30 PM ET [15 minutes])
:36  American Entertainment Radio features
:50:30  American Contemporary Radio News-In-Brief (1.5 minutes)
:54:30  American Contemporary Radio main newscast (5 minutes)

Long-form programming was fed overnights or weekends.  The ABC Direction network was added in 1982, long after I had left.

Sid Schweiger
IT Manager, Entercom New England
20 Guest St / 3d Floor
Brighton MA  02135-2040