18. The news on television became franchised in the 1990s
Local stations began the concept of franchising their news organizations in the late 1980s and through the 1990s. In virtually all local areas, which were and are referred to as Designated Market Areas, there developed competing news organizations labeled with tags including Eyewitness News, Action News, Breaking News, and so on. The concept of Eyewitness News, and its style of reporting, was developed by Westinghouse Broadcasting in the 1960s. Reporters filed filmed stories and then appeared alongside the local anchor to answer one or two questions regarding the story and potential aftermath. The anchor invariably closed the segment with a comment regarding the story’s importance or the quality of the reporting.
The format first appeared at a Westinghouse Broadcasting owned station in Philadelphia, and was later brought to New York. By the 1990s the Eyewitness News format was included in one of the competing local broadcasters in almost all designated market areas and was widely advertised on the station as well as on billboards, mass transit facilities, and local newspapers and magazines. Competing variations to the format, such as Action News, were developed for other stations within the DMA. The Action News format was designed for shorter stories and more of them, producing a faster paced broadcast. The Action News format, with varying names and logo styles, remained less popular than Eyewitness News in local reporting.