Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 12, 1990 TAG: 9005110505
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Short
The plan, which would let affiliates use the service for their own broadcasts or when NBC is not broadcasting, could put NBC in head-to-head competition with CNN; 51 of NBC's 208 affiliates also are affiliated with CNN.
NBC News President Michael Gartner said in a statement Monday that many details have yet to be worked out. The network hopes to unveil the service at the NBC affiliates' annual convention June 3-6 in Washington.
James R. Sefert, chairman of the NBC affiliates' board, characterized the idea as an extension of an NBC service called A-News, which sends affiliates reports from NBC News and the network's affiliates.
He said he had seen no details of the plan but that based on NBC officials' description, "I think it's terrific." However, Sefert, president of Cosmos Broadcasting Corp. in Greenville, S.C., said he didn't know enough about the plan to say whether NBC-affiliated stations would approve.
NBC in 1985 tried to buy 51 percent of CNN but failed because of its insistence that NBC News have editorial control of any NBC-CNN operation that would result.
NBC's plan could become the first major network news push against CNN in the pre-dawn hours since the early 1980s, when there was the short-lived "NBC News Overnight" and CBS News' "Nightwatch."
by CNB