I've long thought that an
actual news network could make a fortune simply broadcasting the "breaking news" that local stations all over the country are airing 24 hours a day. It's already done when they flip to a local station's coverage of a high-speed chase, for example, but making live local news the focus -- a crime in progress in New Orleans, a tornado outside Omaha, a fire in Wisconsin, a hostage situation in Little Rock, etc. -- would provide an endless stream of content. All the network would have to do at startup is get the word to local stations to alert them when they have something breaking live, and then pull their coverage off the net, with proper payment to the local station, of course. Spendy, but not nearly as spendy as running a network with hundreds of employees.
It would be news junkie paradise. Actual live news, all the time.