NBC to Offer Its Affiliates 24-Hour News Service

NBC is planning to launch a 24-hour news service that would be offered to its 209 affiliated TV stations across the country. The affiliates could use the material as part of their own local newscasts or as separate news programs that could be broadcast during the early morning or afternoon hours, when NBC is not transmitting network programming.

“For the past several months, we have been studying ways to work more closely with and better service our affiliates,” Michael Gartner, president of NBC’s news division, said in a statement Monday. “While many details are yet to be determined, we have an outline of a plan and hope to have a final plan by the time” of the annual affiliates meeting June 3-6 in Washington.

NBC officials declined to discuss details of the proposed service, but James Sefert, president of the NBC affiliates board, said he understood it to be an expansion of the so-called A-News service that the network already provides stations to augment their local newscasts. The project is said to be similar to the Headline News service from Cable News Network.

“As I understand it, this would be an expansion of A-News . . . that would offer not only spot news but also features and some program-length service that would have separate anchors,” said Sefert, who also is president of Cosmos Broadcasting Corp. in Greenville, S.C.

The program-length newscasts could be used by stations in time slots that they currently fill with shows produced in-house or purchased from syndicators.

Calling the plans “still formative yet,” Sefert emphasized that the service had only been broadly outlined to him and had not been presented to the NBC affiliates board.

“We need to look at the details--for example, what it will cost NBC and the affiliates--but it’s an exciting concept,” Sefert said.

NBC, which was criticized by its affiliates for its coverage of the Bay Area Quake in October, recently announced that it had ended its on-again, off-again talks about a possible joint news-gathering venture with Turner Broadcasting’s Cable News Network.

NBC’s projected service would meet competition from CNN’s companion network, Headline News. Fifty-one NBC stations are also CNN affiliates. Of those, 20 are licensed to carry Headline News for a maximum of four half-hour newscasts a day.

“The cablecasts of CNN and Headline News are our main business,” Bob Schuessler, vice president of CNN Television, noted Monday. “It’s difficult to comment until I have more information on what NBC plans, but we don’t see it as a competitor to CNN. Even though NBC may be expanding its news feed, we think stations will also want to have CNN’s News Source, which is comparable to their A-News feed.”