WI: No 24-hour news cycle

You could require networks to sign off at midnight or something. Maybe by the FCC banning late-night infomercials, which makes a 24-hour service outside of radio near impossible economically.
 
That's difficult, considering that cable radio existed long before then.

Broad cast radio had 24 hour news available. I recall as a child in the early 1960s major city radio stations that were pretty much all news. A few leaned very heavily on sports.

In print the afternoon papers were fading during my youth, but pre radio many major new papers published both morning and afternoon editions, plus 'Specials' whenever something really big happened. Some papers, particularly second tier dailies, pushed their bed or print deadline hours later than the competition so they could scoop a few evening or night news stories. Others would go to print early so they cold be on the street hours ahead of the competition. If you knew the papers print deadlines you could catch a latest news update 2-4+ times a day, depending on the local papers. Pre radio some papers or major telegraph offices had a public announcer who would read off briefs on the sidewalk out front as they came off the "wire" & into the news room. Businesses sensitive to current events, like stock brokers paid messengers to monitor this source and alert them when something of interest was breaking. As telegraph and teletype became more common news sensitive businesses invested in news or information wire services directly to their offices. Pre electronic and earlier preprint businesses and other 'management' used the observer/messenger system to feed them with current events and rumors of interest. A messenger posted at the harbor wharf or city business gate was common for many merchants.

Point here is the 24 hour news cycle is something that runs back to early human history. The astute king, priest, or merchant kept his finger on the pulse and had a system of informants monitoring the urban or regional rumor mill 24/7. The smart ones went to the messengers often rather than waiting for a less frequent summary or news dump.
 
Broad cast radio had 24 hour news available. I recall as a child in the early 1960s major city radio stations that were pretty much all news. A few leaned very heavily on sports.

In print the afternoon papers were fading during my youth, but pre radio many major new papers published both morning and afternoon editions, plus 'Specials' whenever something really big happened. Some papers, particularly second tier dailies, pushed their bed or print deadline hours later than the competition so they could scoop a few evening or night news stories. Others would go to print early so they cold be on the street hours ahead of the competition. If you knew the papers print deadlines you could catch a latest news update 2-4+ times a day, depending on the local papers. Pre radio some papers or major telegraph offices had a public announcer who would read off briefs on the sidewalk out front as they came off the "wire" & into the news room. Businesses sensitive to current events, like stock brokers paid messengers to monitor this source and alert them when something of interest was breaking. As telegraph and teletype became more common news sensitive businesses invested in news or information wire services directly to their offices. Pre electronic and earlier preprint businesses and other 'management' used the observer/messenger system to feed them with current events and rumors of interest. A messenger posted at the harbor wharf or city business gate was common for many merchants.

Point here is the 24 hour news cycle is something that runs back to early human history. The astute king, priest, or merchant kept his finger on the pulse and had a system of informants monitoring the urban or regional rumor mill 24/7. The smart ones went to the messengers often rather than waiting for a less frequent summary or news dump.

24 Hour newscycles are a natural progression of the above. Many years ago there were ideas to turn BBC Radio 4 LW into a news station. It was nixed but the rise of tv gave us sky news etc
 
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