Network Spectrum News Country United States | Owned by Charter Communications Language English | |
 | ||
Launched April 22, 1990 (1990-04-22) Picture format 1080i (HDTV)
480i (SDTV) | ||
Spectrum News Rochester (formerly Time Warner Cable News Rochester) is an American cable news television channel that is owned by Charter Communications through its acquisition of Time Warner Cable in May 2016, as an affiliate of its Spectrum News slate of regional news channels. The channel provides 24-hour rolling news coverage focused primarily on Rochester, New York and the nearby Genesee River and Finger Lakes regions.
The channel is carried on channel 9 in standard definition, as well as high definition, the latter of which is typically rendered automatically by those Charter Communications customers' high definition supported set-top boxes. Standard definition feeds come through to those customers who purchase Spectrum's Basic-Tier level of cable service, as well as for other tier level service customers who configure their in-home setups to include select televisions without set-top boxes. Higher tiered customers view the channel on digital channel 200 in high definition in Rochester. Channel 14 in other Charter Communications systems within the region fill in the extent of the area's coverage. As with the rest of its upstate sister news channels in upstate New York, Spectrum News Rochester shares news content with New York City-based NY1, Charter Communications' flagship regional cable news channel (which the provider carries on the digital tiers of its Upstate New York systems).
History
The channel launched on April 22, 1990 as a local origination channel using the fictional call sign "WGRC-TV" (standing for "Greater Rochester Cablevision," the area's major cable provider at the time); as such, it is the oldest channel among the Spectrum News networks and the only one that was not launched by Charter Communications predecessor Time Warner Cable. Originally carried on channel 5, the channel produced the first primetime newscast in the Rochester market, which aired nightly at 10:00 p.m. In 1992, the service was moved to channel 9, and was rebranded as "GRC9News;" at that point, the channel added an early evening newscast at 7:00 p.m.
After Time Warner Cable acquired the cable television franchise rights for the area, the channel was renamed again as "R News" on July 4, 1995 and adopted a 24-hour news format with rolling newscasts throughout the day. On May 25, 2005, Time Warner Cable announced that it would eliminate 30 staff positions from the channel and Syracuse-based sister network News 10 Now in a cost-saving consolidation of its three regional news channels at the time in upstate New York. News 10 Now and R News's technical production and master control operations were merged with Albany-based sister channel Capital News 9.
With the move, Capital News 9 began serving as the production and studio hub for the news programming of both channels, while News 10 Now began handling production responsibilities for weather forecast segments for all of its sister news channels statewide, using the channel's weather staff. Each of the channels retained their respective newsgathering crews, producers, facilities and news management; the channels also simulcast the Albany-produced political review program Capital Tonight. In addition, the cable access channels on the systems in each of the channels' markets began sharing broadcasts of collegiate sporting events in the event that Time Warner Cable could secure the rights to air the telecasts in all of its upstate markets.
On August 4, 2009 at 5:00 a.m. Eastern Time, the channel was renamed from R News to YNN Rochester, becoming the second TWC-owned news channel to adopt the "YNN" brand (standing for "Your News Now"), after Buffalo-based sister channel YNN Buffalo (which was the first to use the brand when it launched in April of that year). The "YNN" brand was later expanded to its sister channels in Syracuse (as YNN Central New York) and Albany (as YNN Capital Region). On December 16, 2013, the channel rebranded as Time Warner Cable News Rochester as part of a branding standardization across the provider's news channels that included the introduction of a new graphics and music package.
On September 20, 2016, it was announced that all TWC News channels would be renamed as Spectrum News months after Charter Communications acquired Time Warner Cable.