The final broadcast of the Satellite News Channel, Oct. 27,1983. This is the final 70 minutes of the SNC before the plug was pulled for good by a takeover from Ted Turner’s CNN.
The anchors and staff try to finish the broadcast professionally but the tension/party atmosphere makes for some strange viewing.
Love the camera burn in mark to the left of the anchors head. I guess they figured since they were going off air that day why bother replacing the camera tubes.
From back in the day when meteorologists wore flowers the size of softballs on their jacket lapels.
Tag: Satellite News Channel
Satellite News Channel Final Broadcast Oct. 27, 1983 Part 2
Each 18-minute national newscast featured content gathered from both in-house news gathering and reporting staffs and reports sourced from international television networks that maintained content agreements for the channel.
Reporters:
Ken Alvord
Dan Breinholt
Lyn Brown
Charles Crawford
Amanda Davis
Solon Gray
Jose Grinan
Carol Iovanna
R.D. Sahl
Deborah Stone
Laurel Ornish
Field correspondents:
Jon Bascom
Lou Cioffi
Andy Gastmeyer
Carolyn Gorman
Mike Ritz
Joe Sanchez
Steve Taylor
Meteorologists:
Keith Eichner
Todd Gross
Alan Kasper
Jeff Pylant
Bob Richards
Arnie Rosen
Sportscasters:
Jim Brinson
Dan Carney
Jim Donovan
Marc Goldberg
Frank Gorin
Larry Sacknoff
Dave Sims
Entertainment:
Joe Ricci
Satellite News Channel Final Broadcast Oct. 27, 1983 Part 3
At launch, Satellite News Channel compensated participating cable operators to carry the channel, contrary to the standard of the period in which cable channels charged a nominal fee per subscriber for carriage.
Despite this model, SNC had difficulty obtaining clearance from cable systems.
The satellite transponder space was eventually purchased by CNN’s corporate parent, the Turner Broadcasting System.
Satellite News Channel ceased operations on October 27, 1983, after sixteen months on the air; most local cable systems replaced SNC with either CNN or, more commonly, CNN Headline News.
CNN founder Ted Turner subsequently announced plans to launch a spin-off service, CNN2 (later renamed CNN Headline News shortly after SNC’s launch; it is now named HLN), which originally maintained a format similar to the Satellite News Channel – albeit with newscasts running in 30-minute intervals
Good-bye farewell amen to the old satellite news channel until you meet for your 50th reunion in 2033
Who doesn’t miss this just for the long teletype run 😉
Satellite News Channel One Year Anniversary Video
Satellite News Channel was a 24-hour cable news network launched in June 1982 to compete with the then-fledgling CNN.
On the occasion of SNC’s one year anniversary, this short video chronicled the first year of operation. This video never aired on the channel, but was instead played at a staff party held at the corporate headquarters.
The last half of the video contains a selection of bloopers, some from the SNC and some with more-recognizable news folks, including Chris Wallace, Sam Donaldson and Bill Plante.