ABC Audio is a radio syndicator, radio network and digital audio network in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. It is under the ownership of

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on Octobe ...

, parent company of

American Broadcasting Company The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, Calif ...

(ABC), with satellite distribution being handled by Skyview Networks. It launched on January 1, 2015, as ABC Radio; it was renamed ABC Audio in 2019.

Background

ABC Radio originally began after the split of NBC Red and NBC Blue (later

Blue Network The Blue Network (previously known as the NBC Blue Network) was the on-air name of a now defunct American radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945. Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the National Broadcasting Comp ...

) networks with ABC taking over operations of the latter from

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

in 1943 before adopting its name 2 years later. ABC Radio was known to broadcast the first nationwide report of the

assassination of President John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was in the vehicle with ...

. Kennedy was shot in a motorcade in

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

, at 18:30 UTC on November 22, 1963, and ABC Radio's Don Gardiner anchored the network's initial bulletin at 18:36:50 UTC, minutes before any other radio or television network followed suit. The networks associated with ABC included

Watermark Inc. Watermark Inc. was a radio syndication company that was founded in 1969 by Tom Rounds and Ron Jacobs. Watermark's best known programs were ''American Top 40'' and its spinoff ''American Country Countdown''. Both shows were created by Casey Kasem ...

(which ABC bought in 1982),

Satellite Music Network Satellite Music Network was the first satellite delivered network to provide complete live 24-hour-a-day music programming to local stations, under several different formats. History Affiliate stations, mostly in small and medium markets, co ...

(a 1989 purchase),

ESPN Radio ESPN Radio, which is alternately platform-agnostically branded as ESPN Audio, is an American sports radio network and extension of the ESPN television network. It was launched on January 1, 1992, under the original banner of "SportsRadio ESPN ...

(launched in 1992) and

Radio Disney Radio Disney was an American radio network operated by the Disney Radio Networks unit of Disney Branded Television within the Disney General Entertainment Content, headquartered in Burbank, California. The network broadcast music programmi ...

(debuted in 1996). Despite a number of different owners (

Capital Cities Communications Capital Cities/ABC Inc. was an American media company. It was founded in 1985 when Capital Cities Communications purchased the much larger American Broadcasting Company. It eventually proposed a merger of equals with The Walt Disney Company and ...

and later Disney), the radio division remained under ABC's wing until June 12, 2007, when it was sold to

Citadel Broadcasting Citadel Broadcasting Corporation was a Las Vegas, Nevada-based broadcast holding company. Citadel owned 243 radio stations across the United States and was the third-largest radio station owner in the country. Only iHeartMedia and Cumulus Media ...

as well as most of its O&O stations in a restructuring effort. Under the terms of the reverse Morris trust, ABC shareholders held a controlling stake in Citadel, who licensed the ABC name for two more years until it rebranded as ''Citadel Media Networks'' in 2009. On September 16, 2011,

Cumulus Media Cumulus Media, Inc. is an American broadcasting company and is the third largest owner and operator of AM and FM radio stations in the United States behind Audacy and iHeartMedia. As of June 2019, Cumulus lists ownership of 428 stations in 8 ...

purchased Citadel Broadcasting and rebranded the network division as Cumulus Media Networks. In 2013, Cumulus Media Networks merged with Dial Global Radio Networks to form the current

Westwood One Westwood One is an American radio network owned by Cumulus Media. The company syndicates talk, music, and sports programming. The company takes its name from an earlier network also named Westwood One, a company founded in 1978. The compan ...

. ABC maintained ownership of its Radio Disney network and its ESPN Radio owned-and-operated stations. In 2015, it announced plans to sell off all but one of its Radio Disney station licenses and stop distributing that network through terrestrial radio. The network succeeded in selling off most of its stations, leaving only KRDC; KRDC flipped to a country music format separate from the Radio Disney network but still carrying the Radio Disney brand. Its license, along with ESPN Radio's KSPN, have remained held by "ABC Radio Los Angeles Assets."

History

ABC Radio

On August 7, 2014, ABC announced that it would relaunch its radio network division on January 1, 2015. The change occurred following the announcement that Cumulus would replace its ABC News radio service with Westwood One News (via CNN). ABC will continue to make its radio news programming (via

ABC News Radio ABC News Radio is the news radio service of ABC Audio, a division of ABC News in the United States. Formerly known as ABC Radio News, ABC News Radio feeds, through Skyview Networks, five minute newscasts on the hour and news briefs at half-pas ...

and its FM counterpart ABC News Now) available through the network, and will also expand to create new radio programming based on other ABC owned properties such as ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. ...

'', ''

Dancing With The Stars ''Dancing with the Stars'' is the name of various international television series based on the format of the British TV series '' Strictly Come Dancing'', which is distributed by BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the form ...

'' and ''

Jimmy Kimmel Live ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' is an American late-night talk show, created and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, broadcast on ABC. The nightly hour-long show debuted on January 26, 2003, at Hollywood Masonic Temple in Hollywood, California, as part of ABC's lea ...

''. Skyview Networks would handle advertising sales and satellite distribution. By December 23, 2014, ABC News had signed up over 1,000 affiliated stations for at least one of ABC News, ABC Digital and ABC Air Power networks. This included 200 new affiliates and multiple stations affiliating with more than one service. Major new key affiliates added included

WTOP-FM WTOP-FM (103.5 FM) – branded ''WTOP Radio'' and ''WTOP News'' – is a commercial all-news radio station licensed to serve Washington, D.C. Owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, the station serves the Washington metropolitan area, extending its ...

, WGN and

KFI KFI (640 AM broadcasting, AM) is a radio station in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, owned and operated by iHeartMedia, Inc. It began operations in 1922 and became one of the first high-powered, clear-channel station, clear-channel List of ...

. In April 2018, ABC announced that it planned to develop new syndicated radio programs with Skyview. The pair made a deal in August 2018 to syndicate “The Dana Cortez Show” morning show formerly on “98.5 The Beat” KBBT San Antonio. Around 2015, ABC News began experimenting with podcasts and added an audio channel to its app. On March 28, 2018, the company began its first daily podcast, ''Start Here''. Paula Faris launched a podcast on November 13, 2018 with three episodes of ''Journeys of Faith''.

Local Radio Networks Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...

moved its twelve 24/7 music formats on January 1, 2019 to ABC Radio for marketing and talent sharing and Skyview Networks for satellite distribution. ABC News Radio programming was previously offered to Local Radio affiliates. Vice president and general manager Steve Jones left April 4, 2019 to work at Skyview. For the interim, four ABC News executive would head up ABC Radio: ABC News executive director, programming/news coverage Andrew Kalb, ABC News senior manager, business development Abe Velez, ABC Radio director of affiliate relations Heidi Oringer and ABC News Radio executive director of operations Jeff Fitzgerald. He was replace in May 2019 by Stacia Philips Deshishku promoted from the position of Washington Deputy Bureau Chief.

ABC Audio

On September 20, 2019, ABC Radio was renamed as ABC Audio as the network has evolved to offer a

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

portfolio and other forms of on-demand and linear content. Vice president Deshishku, who made the announcement acknowledges that "the power of radio remains critical to our business, as does the ABC News Radio brand within ABC Audio." In March 2020, ABC Audio indicated that ESPN Audio would take over podcast ad sales.

Programs and services

** ABC News Now *ABC Air Power *''The Deja Vu Show'' *ABC Digital *ABC Sports Radio *''Perspective'' *'' This Week'' *''World News This Week'' *''Your Body with Dr. Jen Ashton

Podcasts

* '' 10% Happier with Dan Harris'' (March 11, 2016–present) * ''20/20'' (November 4, 2017–present) * ''COVID-19 Immunity in Our Community'' (March 31, 2021-present) * ''Cutthroat, Inc.'' (March 26, 2020-May 7, 2020). 7 episodes. * ''The Dropout'' (January 22, 2019-February 26, 2019) * ''Everybody's Got Something'' (September 19, 2016–present) * ''The Essentials: Inside the Curve'' (April, 20, 2020-June 13, 2020). 10 episodes. * ''Have You Seen This Man?'' (October 23, 2019-November 19, 2020). 7 episodes. * ''The HeirPod'' (October 3, 2019—present) ABC News Royal Contributor Omid Scobie hosts * ''In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson'' (March 1, 2021-April 12, 2021). 8 episodes. * ''Inside Frozen 2'' (November 11, 2019-December 9, 2020). 7 episodes. * ''Inside the Oscars'' (March 25, 2021-April 26, 2021). 6 episodes. * ''The Investigation'' (February 11, 2019-February 7, 2020) * ''Journeys of Faith'' (November 13, 2018-April 21, 2020) ten episodes with 3 premiere episodes * ''A Killing on The Cape'' (October 25, 2017–November 29, 2017). 6 episodes. * ''Life After Suicide'' (May 1, 2019-June 18, 2019) * ''Motivated'' (June 26, 2017–December 31, 2017) * ''A Murder on Orchard Street'' (October 3, 2017–November 30, 2017). 8 episodes. * ''Nightline'' (November 30, 2017–present) * ''

No Limits with Rebecca Jarvis No (and variant writings) may refer to one of these articles: English language * ''Yes'' and ''no'' (responses) * A determiner in noun phrases Alphanumeric symbols * No (kana), a letter/syllable in Japanese script * No symbol, displayed � ...

'' (January 9, 2017–December 29, 2019). 145 episodes. * ''Perspective'' (November 9, 2017–present) * '' Popcorn with Peter Travers'' (August 26, 2016–present) * ''Powerhouse Politics'' (February 19, 2016–present) * ''

This Week with George Stephanopoulos ''This Week'', originally titled as ''This Week with David Brinkley'' and currently billed as ''This Week with George Stephanopoulos'', is an American Sunday morning political affairs program airing on the ABC television network. It premiered o ...

'' (November 12, 2017–present) * ''Truth and Lies: Jeffrey Epstein'' (January 9, 2020-July 10, 2020). 10 episodes. * ''Tulsa's Buried Truch'' (April 6, 2021-April 20, 2021). 3 episodes. * ''Uncomfortable'' (March 21, 2017–March 12, 2018) * ''The View'' * ''World News This Week'' (November 3, 2017–present) * '' World News Tonight with David Muir'' (December 1, 2017–present) * ''Start Here'' (March 28, 2018 – present) a twenty-minute audio cast hosted by Brad Mielke

References

External links

*
ABC Radio - Skyview Networks
{{Disney American radio networks * Radio stations established in 2015 Podcasting companies