Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Everything Old is New Again

It seems like I've been overloading on train pictures and radio talk recently, and I apologize.  I'm trying to broaden my horizons, but I enjoy looking at trains and radio is my first love.

Indulge me, please, for another radio discussion. 

A company called TRN, which stands for Talk Radio Network will be offering hours of all news programming to stations around the country.  the head of the country says TRN will start with a single three hour block, then sxpand until they're up to 15 hours.

Sound familiar?

NBC Radio used to have something called NIS, the News and Information Service back in the 70's.  It was all news, all the time, with positions for local stations to do their thing.  You heard it in the Wilkes-Barre area on WBRE FM 98.5 and AM 1340.  NBC Radio eventually pulled the plug, but WBRE kept an all news format going for a while before the owner sold the stations.

Then, Associated Press Radio tried something similar to NIS.  I believe it had only one affiliate in our area, WKOK in Sunbury.  AP eventually gave up, saying the format cost too much and wasn't bringing in enough revenue.

I started in radio news.  It's a marvelous medium, and there isn't nearly enough news on local radio.

TRN hopes to provide its first news block in January, and I have a little hope of my own-- that someone around here decides to broadcast it.