Metro Networks was a broadcasting outsourcing company based in

Houston Houston (; ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in Texas, the Southern United States#Major cities, most populous city in the Southern United States, the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most pop ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. It was a subsidiary of

Westwood One Westwood One is an American radio network owned by Cumulus Media. The company syndicates talk, music, and sports programming. The company takes its name from an earlier network also named Westwood One, a company founded in 1978. The company w ...

until its sale to

Clear Channel Communications iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...

in 2011. The company operated local and regional news and traffic operations that provided regular reports to affiliates, together with its sister company

Shadow Broadcast Services Shadow Broadcast Services (Shadow Traffic) was a broadcasting outsourcing company based in Rutherford, New Jersey. It was a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications. Together with its sister companies Metro Networks, Metro Source, Total Tra ...

. At the time of the sale to Clear Channel Communications, Metro Networks had approximately 2,300 radio affiliates and 170 television affiliates operating in nearly every major radio and television market of the United States, as well as 700+ websites. In addition to offering live and recorded broadcasting reports, Metro Networks operated its own news wire service, Metro Source, rebranded by Clear Channel as ''24/7 News Source''. Metro Source was started in 1997 to compete with other wire services, such as the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. n ...

and

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

. Its "World Desk" is based in Phoenix, Arizona. 24/7 News Source provides hundreds of radio stations and websites with national, state, feature and local stories, including audio and photos. On April 29, 2011, Westwood One sold Metro Networks to Clear Channel Communications for $119.25 million so it can concentrate on their other properties. Clear Channel combined Metro Networks with its own Total Traffic Networks. Metro Networks' traffic service was eventually folded into Total Traffic Networks later that year, with Clear Channel keeping the Total Traffic name for the operation.

References

External links

Official Website
of Metro Traffic (no longer owned by Metro Networks) {{Clear Channel Communications Companies based in Houston