Periodically radio hosts will make news through comments on their shows, as Don Imus did recently. Not all radio programs make show transcripts available.
Suppose ABC News wanted to keep a searchable transcript of what say Rush Limbaugh discusses from day to day. They could simply pay one of their employees to do this. NBC comes to the same conclusion, and hires new employee to transcribe the shows. CBS decides to commission a freelancer to do the same. Then the presidents of the three networks are having lunch, and decide to save money by just commissioning one person to do such transcriptions - it happens to be the same freelancer that CBS had been using. To defray costs, the three networks then approach FOX to see if it would like to join the cooperative. Finally, the four-network cooperative sends out fliers listing the costs of annual subscriptions to the service and per-show Limbaugh transcripts to the Washington Post, NPR, and the McLaughlin Group.
Interesting question, but I would say that since the words are (I assume) copyrighted by Rush Limbaugh, anyone transcribing his radio show without his permission is technically violating his copyright.
To avoid legal trouble, the networks would have to contact Limbaugh about permission to create a transcript for his show. That agreement would indicate whether they can share the transcript.
I would guess that, in the real world, Limbaugh would get paid by a transcription service for the rights to make transcripts, which the service would then sell to the networks.
I would have thought I could transcribe the show for my own personal use. If that is the case, is ABC’s right to do so for in-house use significantly different from my own?