Satellite Extravaganza   

Television networks provide hundreds of storiesto their affiliates each day to use on their mushrooming local newscasts.This has caused profound changes in the way viewers receive their news.

News Channel. NewsOne. Newspath. NewsEdge. Newsource. NNS. ABNET.

Sound familiar? If not, welcome to the dynamicand little understood world of network television news in the 21st century.

Of course you're already familiar with eveningnewscasts and newsmagazine programs. You know Brokaw, Jennings, Rather – allthe high-priced talent. You're attuned as well to around-the-clock cablenews, from CNN to MSNBC to Fox.

But odds are you haven't been following the explosiveand arcane growth sector that is now providing much of that news.

It turns out that in the midst of declining audiences,a sharply reduced international presence, the end of the old bureau system, staff contraction and the power of infotainment, network news divisionswere actually hard at work redefining themselves. And when it comes toreshaping network news, satellite technology has played perhaps the mostimportant role.

For more than 15 years, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNNhave used satellites and the cooperation of willing affiliates to restructurea significant part of the newsgathering process.

Because of the satellites, the networks can makeavailable hundreds of stories – both domestic and international – to theiraffiliates each day. An important breaking story will be provided to affiliatestations at 6 a.m. or at noon or at 4 p.m., well before the network newscast.

The changes are profound, even if little-noticed.Reese Schonfeld, who helped found CNN with Ted Turner, notes that as earlyas the 1980s, local stations were scooping the networks with CNN material.

If nothing else, network hegemony has been diffused.Local stations decide earlier in the day which national and internationalstories to use, a role they once ceded to the network. Viewers can nowexpect to see local newscasts that routinely include coverage, often live,of the top news story of the day. Quietly, the services have diminishedthe network news' role as a must-see, while bringing more comprehensivecoverage to local news broadcasts.

IØ you watch an NBC station for your localnews, chances are you might have seen reporter Jim Hanchett. You mighteven think he is a reporter for your NBC station. And in a way, he is.

Hanchett works out of a small bureau on CapitolHill for NBC's News Channel. On this day in March, he is covering a Senatecommittee hearing on the drug Ecstasy. After the hearing, he files a tapedone-minute, 15-second report at 5 p.m. that can be used by any one of NBC's200 affiliates. Along with the report, he files a generic close: "Backto you."

But some affiliates across the country request – attheir own cost – customized closes, so Hanchett does about 20 of those: "Thisis Jim Hanchett for News Four.... This is Jim Hanchett for Action NewsTwo.... This is Jim Hanchett for News Eleven...." At 5:30 p.m., he doestwo live custom stories, one for Richmond, Virginia, and another for Miami.

"Our stories give local stations the appearanceof having their own guy in Washington," Hanchett says. "It brands theirnewscast while giving national news more of a local feel."

At their most elemental level, NBC's News Channeland others like it provide a video wire service in the form of satellitefeeds for their affiliates – up to 18 hours of new material each day, frombreaking news to sports-highlights packages to features on health, businessand travel. Video made available by one affiliate can be distributed toall of the other affiliates.

Each network also makes available live reportsproduced by network correspondents and production crews to local stationsacross the country throughout the news cycle. That cycle now begins at5 a.m. Eastern time and doesn't end until 11:30 p.m. on the West Coast.

There are approximately 860 television stationsin the U.S. that produce news programming. As local news stations haveexpanded their morning and evening newscasts to two- and sometimes three-hourblocks, their demand for video has become voracious. ABC, CBS and NBC haveabout 200 affiliates each. Most of those 860 stations are affiliated alsowith CNN, which has a total of 677 affiliates. Fox Television has about125 affiliates that produce news.

¯ith all those stations in play, affiliateservices "have become fiercely competitive," says Jack Womack, executivevice president of CNN Newsgroup. Local stations "want to have as many sourcesas they can. You just don't want to miss the picture." CNN itself, withan unprecedented newshole and a large staff of reporters and videographers,accelerated the competition among affiliate services.

This new way of gathering news didn't come intobeing until the mid-1980s. Before that, a satellite feed was impracticalbecause so many stations could neither send nor receive material, saysDon Dunphy Jr., ABC's vice president for news services. Networs distributedfilmed reports by long-distance telephone lines, but that was prohibitivelyexpensive for individual stations.

Conus Communications, pioneered by Stanley S.Hubbard, came up with the innovation that made a satellite-linked newsnetwork possible: the satellite truck. The trucks, mobile sending and receivingstations, were considerably less expensive than the $500,000 cost associatedwith a fixed satellite dish.

CBS started the first satellite feed service foraffiliate stations, now called Newspath, in 1985. The Fox service is calledNewsEdge. NBC's is News Channel, and CNN's is Newsource. NNS is a cooperativeformed by ABC, CBS and Fox. ABNET is an ABC consortium of affiliates thatpurchases and resells satellite time.

hen the services began, a network generallyprovided one daily feed of 15 or 30 minutes of video material, often aboutthe president and sometimes a day late. Today, News Channel sends out about200 items each day, CBS Newspath and ABC NewsOne about 300, and CNN about400.

News Channel President Bob Horner says most ofthe 200 items are regionally oriented stories, followed by national breakingnews, sports highlights, 30 to 40 international items and features. NewsChannel has a "Big Story" designation for the day's top news item. It classifiesstories with especially gripping visual images as "Hot Shots," which arefrequently weather-related items such as hurricanes, mudslides or activevolcanoes. Producers say breaking weather stories are among the most importantdomestically.

While allowing that certain feature stories, suchas health-related news, attract many interested clients, Horner says "thevast majority of what we do" at News Channel is "hard news" that is "event-driven."

Joe Duke, director of marketing for CBS' Newspath,says "the ability to go live from distant places" changed the nature oflocal news broadcasts. "More stations started to go live, and that ratchetedup the competition.... Having a story that [involved] local residents insome distant place gave the station an enormous competitive advantage."

Duke has years of experience competing in localnews. A former news director for CBS affiliates in Houston and New Orleans,he says local stations now demand thorough regional and national coverage.

"If I'm an affiliate, I want Super Bowls, FinalFours, national political conventions, the Academy Awards...you name it,"says Duke. "If the network makes sure that Chicago has everything it wants,it's going to make sure that Dayton has everything it wants, too."

Sitting inconspicuously on the Billy Graham Parkwayin Charlotte, North Carolina, is NBC's News Channel facility. The 10,000-square-footwork space features a visually striking newsroom decorated in shades ofred and gray, with circular desks facing a wall of nearly 100 televisionmonitors.

At one desk are regional producers who talk withthe local stations several times a day. "Every NBC affiliate hears fromone of our regional producers every day," Horner says. For instance, regionalproducers for the Southeast worked with local affiliates in Florida tocover Dale Earnhardt's death at the Daytona 500 and routinely work withthem to coordinate coverage of all Space Shuttle takeoffs and landings.

Another desk handles nonbreaking or specialtystories, such as medical, entertainment or consumer items. A third deskcoordinates live broadcasts for local stations. At the satellite desk,producers and engineers schedule satellite time for News Channel and allNBC affiliates.

News Channel is the only stand-alone satellite-feedfacility, but the other networks have similar structures in place and staffsof between 80 and 120 people, including six to 12 dedicated correspondentsfor breaking news coverage.

All of the services offer live coverage in twoforms. A generic story is a live feed aired at either 30 seconds or oneminute after the top of the hour. It can be broadcast "as is" by any affiliatein the country. During a major breaking story, such as the Florida electionaftermath, a generic story was offered to local stations virtually everyhour. On one Sunday, a 6 p.m. story from Tallahassee was broadcast simultaneouslyon 114 NBC affiliates.

News Channel Executive Producer Sharon Houstonsays that stations may tape live reports and air them later, in the processsuggesting erroneously that the stories are being seen live. That practice,she says, is discouraged. But if the local station doesn't want to takea generic feed at the top of the hour, it is welcome to use the story laterin the newscast or on a different news program. All generic stories areprovided free for local stations.

News Channel can also customize stories in severalways. An affiliate might request a live feed on a story from Washingtonthat has news value only in that local market. Or on a major story, anaffiliate might want a personalized closing, like those that Hanchett did.The local station can also request cross-talk between the local anchorand the reporter on-scene.

CNN's Jack Womack says the cable network's recordfor custom "tags" or story endings is 90 in one day by one correspondentfor the same story. In that case, the tags were taped ahead of airtimeand fed to the stations individually.

In nine days in March, ABC NewsOne reporter CarlaWohl covered an earthquake in Seattle, a hearing in Hawaii on the crashof a Navy submarine with a Japanese boat and the school shooting in Santee,California, outside San Diego.

But reporting a breaking story is only one ofher challenges. Wohl says she may do versions of a story for as many as30 or 40 affiliates on the same day, which may involve a stand-up reportor cross-talk with a local anchor. Doing so is a technical feat that requiresher to wear a double earpiece that allows her to hear both the local anchorsand her producer, who tells her the names of those anchors. She often watchesa small portable television to see additional coverage of the story she'sreporting.

"It's a very challenging job because you don'talways know what's going to be thrown at you," says Wohl, who is basedin Los Angeles. "When it's constant, you're just going, going, going onadrenaline. You have to be quick on your feet. That's the fun of it. It'sexciting." She cites the post-election coverage in Tallahassee as the mostchaotic story she's covered. "It changed every two minutes, and it lastedfor weeks." In about a month, Wohl did more than 250 live reports for localstations.

The demand for live reports can be so great thatthere's precious little time for actual reporting. "Everybody wants youlive," Wohl says, "and you have to be innovative to find out what's goingon."

She has done reports for the BBC and stationsin Canada and New Zealand. But she feels she knows scores of local anchorsin the United States by name. "If it's New York," she says, "I know thatit's Roz at 5 o'clock."

Although the affiliate services generally chargestations a fee for custom services, overall they do not expect to makea profit on what they do. In theory, better news coverage for each stationwill improve their profitability and, accordingly, their value to the network.The networks do cultivate some for-profit clients. ABC's NewsOne, for example,provides video to the "Oprah Winfrey Show," Black Entertainment Televisionand several other cable stations.

And unlike stations, the news services don't haveto worry about ratings. Producers and editors working for them take pleasurein the focus on news for its own sake. NBC's Horner speaks for all of themwhen he points to the enjoyment of "working with a staff motivated by coverageand content."

If there is a substantive downside, it may bethat the services help saturate coverage of the story of the moment. Althoughintensive coverage of the Florida recount was clearly justified (and CBSNewspath provided more than 1,000 live stories in the month after the election),the amount of reporting on the O.J. Simpson case probably represents technologicaland journalistic overkill. NBC's News Channel produced an astounding 15,000live stories during the course of the Simpson saga. News Channel reporterHanchett says, "I probably did 1,500 live shots myself."

Although affiliate services may operate underthe radar of national attention, they play a vitally important role fortheir networks. In an era of cutbacks in news budgets and personnel, affiliateservices "have become the main newsgathering apparatus for breaking news,"says Dunphy.

Al Prieto, executive director of ABC NewsOne,says "the importance of our service is that the local stations get materialthat they would never be able
to get without spending much more money.... Theirappetite now for news material is really insatiable."

¯ndeed, a seismic shift in U.S. televisionnews has been playing out for a number of years. As local stations gainthe ability to receive more news material from networks, they bring theworld to their viewers by acting as gatekeepers for the entire range ofnational and international news. At the same time, they can reach out byasking affiliate services to cover stories of local interest. The result,in theory, is a beefed-up broadcast that has revolutionized local news.

Now, if only the people behind it could get somerecognition.

Laments Joe Hewes of CBS' Newspath: "None of ourmothers knows what we do for a living.