I lament the fact that the decision reflects badly on people I respect and it reflects badly on me and the broadcast." Additionally, Westin said: "I don't anticipate not putting it on the air. "I honestly believe that this is more carefully documented than anything any network did during Watergate. "I am upset about the way it was handled," he said in an interview. Arledge said that he had killed the piece because it was "gossip-column stuff" and "does not live up to its billing." Downs, however, took issue with Arledge's judgment. 20/20 drew criticism from the co-anchors of the program, Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters, and the executive producer, Av Westin. Scandal erupted in 1985 over a decision by Arledge, president of ABC News and Sports, to kill a 13-minute report about Marilyn Monroe possibly due to his close ties to Ethel Kennedy. Additionally, ABC News signed a multi-year content deal with AP for its affiliate video service, Associated Press Television News (APTV), while providing material from ABC's own news video service, ABC News One, to APTV. In June 1998, ABC News (which owned an 80% stake in the service), Nine Network and ITN sold their respective interests in Worldwide Television News to the Associated Press. ABC News' longtime slogan, "More Americans get their news from ABC News than from any other source." (introduced in the late 1980s), was a claim referring to the number of people who watch, listen to and read ABC News content on television, radio and (eventually) the Internet, and not necessarily to the telecasts alone. Arledge, known for experimenting with the broadcast "model", created many of ABC News' most popular and enduring programs, including 20/20, World News Tonight, This Week, Nightline, and Primetime Live. With the appointment of then president of ABC Sports, Roone Arledge as president of ABC News in 1977, ABC invested the resources to make it a major source of news content. ABC had fewer affiliate stations and a weaker prime-time programming slate to be able to support the network's news operations compared to the two larger networks, each of which had established their radio news operations during the 1930s.īy the 1970s, the network had effectively turned around, with its prime-time entertainment programs achieving stronger ratings and drawing in higher advertising revenue and profits to ABC overall.
Until the early 1970s, ABC News programs and ABC in general consistently ranked third in viewership behind CBS and NBC news programs. Broadcasts continued as the ABC network expanded nationwide. Regular television news broadcasts on ABC began soon after the network signed on its initial owned-and-operated television station (WJZ-TV, now WABC-TV) and production center in New York City in August 1948. NBC conducted the split voluntarily in case its appeal of the ruling was denied and it was forced to split its two networks into separate companies.
The radio market was dominated by only a few companies, such as NBC and CBS. The reason for the order was to expand competition in radio broadcasting in the United States, specifically news and political broadcasting, and broaden the projected points of view. ABC began in 1943 as the NBC Blue Network, a radio network that was spun off from NBC, as ordered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1942.