All News Channel
All News Channel was an American satellite television news channel and broadcast syndication service operated as a joint venture between Viacom and CONUS Communications, itself a division of Hubbard Broadcasting. Launched on November 30, 1989 and operating until September 30, 2002, its format consisted of half-hourly rotating newscasts presented in a rolling news wheel schedule, incorporating story packages gathered from in-house reporting staffs and sourced from local television stations that maintained agreements with CONUS to supply content for the cooperative satellite news video-sharing service.
ANC primarily syndicated its news programming in blocks of varying length, determined by each carrier station, to local television stations across the United States. The channel was also offered to pay television providers across the country from its inception, though beginning in 1994, it was carried mainly by direct-broadcast satellite providers United States Satellite Broadcasting and, after its 1999 acquisition of USSB from Hubbard, DirecTV. All News Channel was headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota at the studios of Hubbard's flagship television and radio stations, including KSTP-TV, the ABC affiliate for the Minneapolis–St. Paul market.
History
All News Channel was launched on November 30, 1989; it was co-founded by Hubbard and Viacom as a joint venture between divisions of the respective partners, news wire service CONUS Communications and satellite programming distributor Showtime Satellite Services. CONUS was a news video-sharing cooperative service for local television stations nationwide, particularly those affiliated with a major broadcast network; nearly all of ANC's video came from these stations, who in turn utilized satellite news-gathering trucks that had been invented, built and sold by Hubbard beginning in 1984. CONUS also maintained a small news bureau in Washington, D.C. It was the second nationwide challenger to established cable news channel CNN after the Satellite News Channel, as well as the first since SNC folded in 1983.All News Channel, like many other cable networks, struggled with cable carriage throughout its existence; indeed, the service was mainly targeted at home satellite dish users, while sales material for ANC largely focused on the ability for broadcast stations to use ANC programming to fill holes in their schedules, as a replacement for programming blacked out by syndication exclusivity restrictions, or as part of localized news services. Beginning in 1992, ANC switched to an all-barter syndication model via All-American Television, in part as a defensive strategy against network-supplied overnight newscasts. The channel's reach was boosted on June 17, 1994, when Hubbard Broadcasting launched United States Satellite Broadcasting, including ANC as the direct-broadcast satellite service's only option for news; CNN and other news channels were carried on DirecTV, the proprietor of the Digital Satellite System that USSB also utilized to transmit its services.
All News Channel/CONUS also produced news content for third parties. Beginning in January 1991 as a response to the Gulf War, All News Channel produced daily news updates for premium cable channel Showtime that aired during its prime time promotional breaks. The channel also produced the USA Update news interstitials for USA Network from 1993 to 2000. From 1991 to 1994, VH1 carried ANC-produced interstitials during the morning music video block Hits, News & Weather. ANC/CONUS also produced long-form programs for broadcast syndication including the morning financial news program First Business, The American Times and On the Money.
Upon the completion of Hubbard’s $1.3-billion sale of USSB to then-DirecTV parent Hughes Entertainment, All News Channel—along with the remainder of USSB’s channel suite—migrated to DirecTV’s channel lineup on July 1, 1999; the deal included a long-term programming agreement that allowed DirecTV to distribute up to three Hubbard-owned channels, including ANC and sister arts/culture network Ovation. ANC benefited in part by being the only news channel on the USSB satellite service, though arguably any advantage enjoyed by ANC was undercut by the fact that many USSB subscribers also subscribed to DirecTV and vice-versa; after USSB merged into DirecTV, it was then one of six such channels, and it no longer had the explicit backing of its satellite provider.
All News Channel was never profitable throughout its history and could not withstand the challenges of MSNBC and Fox News Channel, which pushed ANC to fifth place in the ratings—behind Headline News—among all cable news channels. CONUS itself began to be squeezed out of the newsgathering marketplace by rival CNN Newsource, as well as the major networks' own affiliate news services.
As a result, Hubbard announced the closure of CONUS' newsgathering operations in the fall of 2002 ; Hubbard continued to maintain their videotape archives and sell transponder time. The closure of CONUS also meant the closure of All News Channel, which shut down on September 30, 2002, with veteran anchor Stan Turner thanking those watching and those behind the scenes; stations that carried ANC have since replaced the channel's programming with syndicated and/or paid programming or have expanded their clearance of overnight news programs supplied by their affiliated network.
Format
ANC aired up to five live half-hour newscasts each day, with each edition being repeated until the next live newscast aired; however, exceptions to this set scheduling were made for major breaking news stories, with updates being regularly incorporated into the newscasts as new information became available.Like CNN Headline News and Satellite News Channel before it, ANC's newscasts utilized a news wheel format, which was intended to allow viewers to receive updated information on national and international headlines at any time throughout the day. This format featured national and world headlines at the top of the hour ; a national news summary at :08/:38 after the hour; national weather forecasts at :15/:45 after; consumer reports and stock market summaries at :17/47 after; sports headlines and scores or health and medical news at :20/50 after; and entertainment and lifestyle reports at :25/:55 after.
If mistakes were made during the live broadcasts, a corrected segment would be produced for the repeat broadcasts. ANC operated on a fixed schedule, where each news block ran the same length every day, and commercials aired at the same time every day.
The on-air talent was mostly exclusive to All News Channel, though some anchors from Hubbard flagship station KSTP also served as ANC anchors, most notably Stan Turner, who worked for the network from 1992 until its closure; KSTP meteorologists and weather producers also presented taped weather segments for All News Channel until early 2002. Later, ANC show producers voiced their own weather segments, along with other stories.
9/11 News Coverage
During the September 11 attacks, ANC struggled to keep up with the bombardment of information. ANC's traditional format only had a live newscast every four hours. Due to their small staff on 9/11, the network could only be live for 30 minutes per hour and then repeat the broadcast. The channel also did not have the live remote broadcast abilities of other sources, instead relying on second-hand reporting. Unlike most news broadcasts on 9/11, ANC continued to air scheduled commercials.Distribution
Broadcast syndication
Broadcast television stations in many markets carried All News Channel newscasts as filler programming, usually during the overnight and early morning hours in lieu of signing off, or scheduling movies, infomercials or other syndicated programming during those timeslots. In later years, as NBC, ABC and CBS launched their own overnight news programs, ANC programming continued to air on many of their affiliates—including Hubbard-owned stations—as a complement to these programs and also to provide an overnight news option on weekends, when no such option was offered.Some Hubbard stations ran ANC as a substitute for their affiliated network's overnight newscasts—including KSTP, which offered ANC programming overnights from March 1990 until ANC ceased operations in September 2002, when it began clearing ABC's World News Now as a replacement. In addition, since ANC's newscasts never contained any copyrighted music, stations broadcasting the ANC feed could stay on the air longer without increasing their ASCAP, Broadcast Music Incorporated, and/or SESAC fees.