Action News is a local television newscast format in the United States. It was conceived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at WFIL-TV (now WPVI-TV) in 1970 as a response to the "Eyewitness News" format used on rival station KYW-TV.
The main difference between Action News and Eyewitness News was that the former was far more tightly formatted. Time limits were set on packages - for instance, a reporter package could be no longer than 90 seconds. This difference enabled the station to cover more stories than their competitors. Another key difference was the focus on the surrounding Philadelphia suburban areas - a response to the movement of residents from the city to the suburbs. Finally, WPVI placed more emphasis on young talent - while WCAU-TV and KYW-TV used older, respected news anchors such as Vince Leonard, Tom Snyder and John Facenda, WPVI used a young Larry Kane as their top anchor. Later the station would add the very popular Jim O'Brien as their main weathercaster.
The format quickly took off, and after a few years of going back and forth with KYW for first place, WPVI took the lead in 1977 and has held it ever since. Capital Cities Communications, WPVI's owner at the time, took the format to most of its other stations
WPIX-TV in New York City, an independent station at the time (now affiliated with The CW and owned by Tribune Broadcasting), picked up the Action News concept (and music) successfully for its 10 p.m. newscast. The newscast won numerous awards, but the station never approached the ratings of longtime leader WNEW-TV (now WNYW-TV).
Sister stations WFTS-TV and KSHB-TV are the first in the country identify themselves with the Action News branding all day with no station number.
Outside the United States, the Action News title was used by the following television stations:
