North Carolina News Network - History

History

The roots of this network go back to 1942, when WRAL (AM) 1240 (now WPJL) in Raleigh, North Carolina began producing agricultural reports for farmers in the Eastern part of the state. Shortly after returning from service in World War II, Ray Wilkinson began delivering agricultural reports in Rocky Mount, North Carolina on radio station WCEC 810 AM (now dark), where he was Program Director. Shortly thereafter, WRAL expressed interest in broadcasting Wilkinson’s reports, and the groundwork was laid for the foundation of the Tobacco Radio Network, the predecessor to NCNN.

The network was so-named because tobacco was the leading agricultural crop in Eastern North Carolina, where the oldest stations of the network were based. With the establishment of WRAL-FM in 1946, the network took advantage of its static-free reception and wide coverage area to begin relaying programming to other stations that desired agricultural news. Eventually, the network was available to nearly all of North Carolina through a system of FM repeater stations.

Feeder stations for the network included:

• WRAL-FM, 101.5 MHz, Raleigh — Main origination station
• WCEC-FM, 100.7 MHz, Rocky Mount (now WRVA-FM) — Eastern Zone feeder station
• WGBR-FM, 97.7 MHz, Goldsboro (now WEQR) — Southeastern Zone feeder station
• WGWR-FM, 92.3 MHz, Asheboro (now WKRR) — Central Zone feeder station
• WEGO-FM, 97.9 MHz, Concord (now WPEG) — Western Zone feeder station

A companion network, the Tobacco Sports Network, was formed in the mid 1950s to broadcast College Football and College Basketball for the four major universities centered in and around Raleigh. Broadcast commentators for events on this network included Bill Currie and Ray Reeve. It was this network that broadcast the North Carolina Tar Heels’ winning game in the 1957 NCAA basketball championship to a statewide audience.

In 1963, Wilkinson became Farm News Director for WRAL, and the programming he was producing for the network went to Raleigh with him. He became Vice-President of Capitol Broadcasting Company, in charge of both networks, a position he held for 31 years.

With Wilkinson's move to WRAL, operations for the two networks were consolidated by Capitol Broadcasting and renamed the T-N Radio Network. A news staff was hired, and hourly newscasts were begun. During the 1960s, the distinctive three-note news sounder could regularly be heard at 55 minutes past the hour on radio stations across North Carolina.

In 1973, concurrent with programming changes at parent station WRAL-FM, the network was re-imaged to the current “North Carolina News Network” for news, weather and sports reports, while agricultural reports continued as “T-N Farm News.”

By 1978, the network had discontinued the FM feeder station distribution, and was carried by telephone lines as a conventional network. That change would only be temporary, as Capitol Broadcasting began satellite distribution of NCNN in 1983.

The satellite bandwidth provided to NCNN by Capitol Satellite Services allowed the network to re-enter Sports Broadcasting in a big way in the 1990s, offering distribution services for North Carolina State University and Duke University games, and those of the NBA Charlotte Hornets.

In recent years, NCNN has become available to listeners worldwide by streaming audio on the internet.

On August 10, 2009 NCNN owners Capitol Broadcasting Company announced the sale of the network to Curtis Media Group, also of Raleigh. Curtis owns stations in the Raleigh Market, as well as station groups in Wilmington, Goldsboro, Burlington, Winston-Salem and Boone.