All News Channel


All News Channel was an American satellite television news channel that was owned by CONUS Communications, a joint venture between Viacom and Hubbard Broadcasting. The channel was carried mainly on direct-broadcast satellite provider DirecTV. All News Channel's programming was also syndicated to television stations across the United States. The channel was headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota. The channel ceased broadcasting on September 30, 2002.

History

All News Channel was launched on January 1, 1989, through a partnership formed between Viacom and Hubbard called CONUS Communications, which included a news video-sharing service for local television stations nationwide, particularly those affiliated with a major broadcast network. Nearly all of ANC's video came from these stations. CONUS also maintained a small news bureau in Washington, D.C. It was the first nationwide challenger to established cable news channel CNN since the Satellite News Channel folded in 1983. From shortly after its inception until the early 1990s, All News Channel produced daily news updates that aired on Showtime during the premium channel's promo breaks. The channel also produced similar updates for USA Network from 1992 to 2000; the newsbriefs were originally produced at KYW-TV in Philadelphia, but management and newscast changes at that station caused the network to move production. From 1991 to 1994, VH1 carried All News Channel-produced interstitials during the morning block Hits, News & Weather.
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 among all cable news channels. It benefited in part by being the only news channel on the USSB satellite service ; after USSB merged into DirecTV, it was then one of five such channels, and it no longer had the explicit backing of its satellite provider. The channel shut down on September 30, 2002; 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 six 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. ANC also co-produced the syndicated morning business news program First Business, before its national distribution rights were transferred to MGM Television shortly after ANC shut down.
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; meteorologists from Hubbard's flagship station KSTP-TV, the ABC affiliate for the Minneapolis–St. Paul market, recorded weather segments for All News Channel until 2002. Later, ANC show producers voiced their own weather segments, along with other stories.
Broadcast television stations in many markets carried All News Channel programming during the overnight hours in lieu of signing off, or scheduling movies, infomercials or other syndicated programming to fill overnight timeslots. In later years, as NBC, ABC and CBS launched their own overnight news programs, ANC programming continued to air on stations affiliated with those networks as a complement to these programs and also to provide news programming in weekend time periods when network overnight newscasts were not airing. 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.