NBC and FOX announced a couple of days ago they’ve entered into a video sharing agreement. Only FOX and NBC-owned stations are involved, for now.
The Local News Service will only cover stories such as breaking news, crime scene stories, news conferences etc. Basically the stuff every news station covers ultimately ending up with video of the same thing shot by 4 stations.
The idea was tested over the summer in Philadelphia where a team of 20-25 people from the FOX and NBC stations would decide where to send crews. The video will be made available to both stations to edit as they wish, or send their own crew to the scene, and for a fee to other news outlets in town.
The two companies will soon expand the model to New York, Washington DC, Dallas, Chicago and LA with Philadelphia launching first officially in January
The partnership, hope FOX and NBC, would save both outlets quite a bit of money plus free up staff at each station to focus on original reporting.
At some point in the future non-owned-and-operated NBC and FOX stations will be invited to participate.