After the news broke last night that Disney and Univision were in talks to create a 24-hour cable news channel, we heard from a longtime cable news executive who reminded us that ABC News has been here before.
In 1982, ABC partnered with Westinghouse Broadcasting for something called the Satellite News Channel. Based in Stamford, CT, the channel produced a rotating newscast every 20 minutes with the slogan, “Give us 18 minutes, we’ll give you the world.” It was meant to compete with the 2-year-old CNN and the 6-month-old CNN2 (now HLN). It went on the air on June 21, 1982 but failed because it couldn’t get decent cable carriage. It went off the air October 27, 1983, was bought by CNN and shut down. What do you think of the Disney/Univision idea?
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