THE RISE & FALL OF NIS, NBC’S 24/7 RADIO NEWS CHANNEL

This is a slightly edited version of a post that first appeared 

on Spark News in June 2016. 

Once there was a full-time radio news channel called NIS: NBC’s News and Information Service. It was a 24/7 service that local stations could customize or just let it play.

NIS began feeding stations the automated format on June 18, 1975. It debuted with the hope it would revolutionize U.S. radio. NBC placed ads in all of the media trade papers calling the sign-on The Most Important Day in Radio History.

 When NBC cancelled NIS eighteen months later, the 24/7 news channel was known as one of the most costly failures in American media history.  It also led to NBC’s eventual exit from the radio news.

Common wisdom is that NIS failed because it “was ahead of its time” and was too expense, both of which are both partially true. 

Now, more than forty years later, people say that if NIS could have continued it might have been a major news source that even could have challenged NPR News.

 According to a former NIS staffer (who asked not to be named in this story), NIS failed because of the “Lack of imagination and poor execution.” The former staffer told Spark News in 2016 that the failure of NIS was caused by “misguided group-think.” Plus it didn’t sound very good. (Scroll down to hear what NIS sounded like.)

Jack Thayer

In the fall of 1974 NBC Radio was trailing the other big nets ABC, CBS and Mutual.  NBC’s O&O (“Owned and Operated”) FM stations were languishing. The radio division, run by Jack Thayer, needed a big big idea that would turn the ship around.

ABC Radio had revolutionized the business of network radio when, in 1968, they began feeding four different newscasts each hour designed for specific formats. At the time most radio stations carried network newscasts.  ABC’s bold move allowed them to quadruple its number of affiliates and ad revenue.

Keep in mind that NPR News was a minor factor at the time. All Things Considered was their only daily news program. Many NPR member stations didn’t sign until Noon. It was also before CNN.

The NIS program clock

Thayer held brainstorming sessions to determine NBC’s next big thing. 

According to former NIS staffers, several scenarios were considered. One option, pushed by younger folks on the staff, was a live hourly version of Earth News, a counter-culture news service delivered to stations via scripts and transcription discs.

Thayer turned the project over to Alan Walden, an old-school AM radio personality, who had great success running NBC’s WBAL-AM in Baltimore.

 Walden's model for NIS were existing AM news stations such as 1010 WINS, KNX and KFWB.

On February 10, 1975, The New York Times broke the news about NBC’s NIS 24/7 news service. It seemed make sense because it would make full use of the resources of NBC News, but in a new way.

At a news conference Thayer said NIS would provide NIS affiliates with 50-minutes of programming every hour. 

Affiliates were required to pay $15,000 per month in the largest markets and $750 per month in the smallest markets. Plus stations were required to air commercials embedded in NIS programming. Thayer predicted NIS would have affiliates in 75 of the top 100 markets.

Walden went to work building the NIS staff of over 200 people. Many members of the founding staff came from established AM powerhouses like 1010 WINS, WCBS and KNX.

Walden crafted a format clock (shown on the right) with something for everybody: Headlines, features, commentaries, vox pop and interviews, all sliced and diced into short chunks of time to 

fit into the program clock.

When NIS debuted in June 18, 1975, it had fewer than 50 affiliates. Even some of NBC’s O&O FMs refused to carry it.  Many stations balked at the high cash fees and onerous commercial carriage requirements. 

So NBC began marketing NIS as an updated version of Monitor, a weekend news service that was popular in the 1950s and 1960s.

By Spring 1976, most of the NIS affiliates were old beat up AM stations, many former Top 40 giants like KRUX in Phoenix, KUDL in Kansas City and WPOP in Hartford. The ratings weren’t great. The NIS carriage list from Spring 1976 is shown on the right.

In the Spring 1976 Arbitron ratings, published by Duncan’s American Radio, we saw that NIS was on 10 FM stations and 25 AM stations. There were  only 19 stations were in the top 100 radio markets, far lower than what Thayer had predicted. Most of the NIS affiliates aired it only late at night.

There were also audio quality issues. Andy Denemark, who worked at NBC in the 1970s and 1980s, told Spark News about technical faults of NIS:

“[NIS was] delivered on phone lines in those days... a 5k equalized line into major markets, a 3.5k un-equalized line into smaller towns. The high cost of those “webs” of wires (for which the phone company charged by mileage) was outrageous.”

The New York Times reported on November 4, 1976, that NBC had pulled the plug on NIS. According the Times, NIS had lost more than $20,000,000 (close to $400,000,000 in 2016 dollars).  Heads rolled at NBC.

Staffers were told that NIS was being cancelled at an all-staff meeting the day after the 1976 election.

After NIS folded, there has never been another serious attempt by any commercial broadcaster to create a 24/7 all news channel.

Here is a YouTube video with audio from NIS from WNBC-FM in 1976 during afternoon drive..