This article, based on two areas of inquiry, shows how the appearance of national and international continuous news channels has helped to transform the general economy of production and broadcasting of news. After defining the characteristics of the conditions of news production at these channels, the authors show how those conditions have established new models of labour organization, occupations and professional frames of reference: for example, working in conditions of urgency and the development of "seated" and versatile journalism. Finally, they briefly analyse some of the effects of these conditions of production on the processing of information.