NEW YORK — The forthcoming global national radio news service from the owner of WABC Radio has revealed when it will debut. And, its timing is designed to coincide with the conclusion of the CBS News Radio service.
The John Catsimatidis-owned Red Apple Audio Networks will formally shift into the national news arena with the debut of the Worldwide News Network at Midnight Eastern on Saturday, May 23.
It will be a 24-hour radio news service “built to deliver hard news, breaking headlines, and fact-driven reporting to affiliates across the country.” As previously reported, the operation will be led by the recently arrived Lee Harris, now Vice President of News for the fledgling Worldwide News Network and for WABC Radio in New York.
The service plans to immediately feed affiliate stations top and bottom of the hour newscasts every hour, seven days a week. To accomplish this, Red Apple has hired CBS Radio broadcast journalists Michael Wallace, Cooper Lawrence, Bill Rehkopf, and Matt Pieper as part of what the Catsimatidis-led operation says will be “a rapid buildout of the network’s team of elite news anchors, correspondents, writers, and producers.”
“We are assembling top-tier journalists and building a modern radio news operation rooted in speed, authority, and facts — one that stations can rely on and listeners can trust,” Harris said.
For Red Apple Media President Chad Lopez, “There is a huge opening right now for credible, immediate, no-nonsense reporting. Listeners want to know what happened, why it matters, and what’s happening next. That’s the lane Worldwide News Network is taking.”
For Catsimatidis, who made his fortune with venerable New York supermarket chain Gristedes, “Our mission is to be the most trusted news gathering organization in media. We are creating a powerful, around-the-clock newsroom designed to compete at the highest level of broadcast audio news. Facts are what will drive the Worldwide News Network. We’re looking forward to our expansion in the European markets.”
Stations interested in learning more about the Worldwide News Network may contact Sue Falco at [email protected].
I have been a avid fan of WABC News for several decades, especially during the years when the Rush Limbaugh Show was carried by the station and currently during the Greg Kelly show as well as Rita Cosby’s show. I always check in during the day. But a new voice has me ready to ditch WABC entirely. Cooper Lawrence does NOT have the voice for a ‘newsreader.’ She sounds as if she has no idea of the meaning of the words she repeats, inflecting the wrong syllables, raising and lowering the pitch at the wrong times, IOW, completely irritating. It’s so bad I tried leaving a message at WABC but was unsuccessful. It would be one thing if a listener could choose whether or not to folllow her (which I never would) but to have her barge in with one of the worst and most inappropriate news reader voices I’ve ever heard multiple times per hour has me changing the dial, frequently. (I lsten in the car, at home while working, outside when doing yardwork). Her voice is like the proverbial fingeranails on a chalk board. For me to have gone to the trouble of tracking this person down means I find listening to her so unpleasant I prefer to shut the station off. Just a note from a decades-long fan ready to ditch WABC. I understand this is a new direction for WABC – World Wide News Network – but couldn’t you find a different spot to move Cooper to? One that doesn’t require a listener to be constantly exposed to that voice?