Spectrum News Rochester


Spectrum 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 of March 6, 2018, all customers are required to utilize digital receivers to view the station. These digital receivers come in two types: High Definition Multimedia Interface - HDMI - supported High Definition television digital receivers, and for those televisions void of HDMI connectivity, standard digital receivers. 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.

History

The channel launched on April 22, 1987 as a local origination channel using the fictional call sign "WGRC-TV" ; 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. The channel originally ran syndicated cartoons 6 to 9 AM, classic sitcoms 9 AM-Noon, a movie at noon, more syndicated cartoons 2 to 5 PM, family sitcoms 5 to 6 PM, then-fairly recent sitcoms till 8 PM, a movie at 8 PM, and after 11 PM a mix of sitcoms and drama shows. Weekends the station ran a mix of movies and drama shows and cartoons. Originally carried on channel 5, the channel produced the first prime time newscast in the Rochester market, which aired nightly at 10:00 p.m. Gradually the station added evolved to air more talk shows and game shows but still some cartoons and sitcoms and movies. 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. In 1993 a 6 to 9 a.m. newscast was added. The station now ran talk shows till 3 p.m., cartoons at 5 p.m., some sitcoms 5 to 7 p.m., still a movie in prime time, and now talk shows and rebroadcasts of news late nights. A newscast was added at noon in 1994 and in early 1995 cartoons were dropped and the newscast began at 4 PM. The channel evolved to a news based format by then.
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 news gathering 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, after Buffalo-based sister channel YNN Buffalo. The "YNN" brand was later expanded to its sister channels in Syracuse and Albany. 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. This transition completed & became live on March 14, 2017. Nearly one year following the initial changeover announcement, on September 18, 2017, Spectrum News retooled to a 4K inspired, modern & all new graphics and music package.
On July 27, 2018, the New York Public Service Commission revoked Charter's cable franchises in the state of New York, citing failures to meet conditions imposed on the provider as part of the TWC purchase. Despite the revocation of Charter's cable franchises in New York, the future fate of Spectrum News in Rochester after Spectrum's exit from New York State is currently unknown.

Current on-air staff