Northwest Cable News
Northwest Cable News (NWCN) was an American cable news television channel owned by Tegna Media. The channel, which launched on December 18, 1995, provided 24-hour rolling news coverage focused primarily on the Pacific Northwest region of the United States (Washington, Oregon, Idaho and northwest Montana). The channel was headquartered out of the studio facilities of Tegna-owned NBC affiliate KING-TV (channel 5) in downtown Seattle. The channel was available to 2.9 million residents (through both cable television and over-the-air) within the region, and, to a lesser extent, Alaska, Northern California, and other areas of Montana.
 | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana (Northwest; other areas), Alaska (Juneau, Dutch Harbor, Sitka, Fairbanks, Hydaburg, Ketchikan, Kodiak, Anchorage and Nome), Northern California |
| Slogan | NW News and Weather 24 Hours a Day (primary) Always There. Always On. (secondary; promos) |
| Headquarters | Seattle, Washington |
| Programming | |
| Language(s) | English |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV) |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Tegna Media |
| Sister channels | Seattle, WA: KING-TV, KONG Portland, OR: KGW Spokane, WA: KREM, KSKN Boise, ID: KTVB |
| History | |
| Launched | December 18, 1995 |
| Closed | January 6, 2017 (21 years, 19 days) |
Some of the network's programming was carried on a sister broadcast station KTVB in Boise, during the overnight hours. From August 28, 2009 to January 20, 2015, it was also aired over the air on their DT3 subchannel, as well as Cable One. It was previously on Cable One until 2003; it was re-added on February 12, 2010. On January 20, 2015, a corporate mandate where Gannett became a charter carrier of the Justice Network meant that it was replaced on KTVB-DT3, and it was carried on Dish Network from April 26, 2011 to February 29, 2016, when it was removed per a mutual decision between the two parties.
On October 28, 2016, Northwest Cable News announced that the channel would shut down on January 6, 2017. The closure arrived after the retirement or contract buyouts of several high-profile on- and off-screen talent the previous April. It came at a time when the channel's viewership had decreased in the face of increased news consumption on digital and other non-television platforms, along with the nationwide streaming availability of the newscasts live or delayed of the stations contributing content for the network via their websites, effectively making the entire operation superfluous and duplicative. In addition, the network did not broadcast in HD, which was nearly universal for television news in the U.S. by the time of the shut-down announcement. Approximately 20 employees were affected, and Tegna offered some of them positions at other Tegna stations.[1]
Programming
The network incorporated news content purposed from four Tegna-owned stations in the northwestern United States – NBC-affiliated stations KING-TV in Seattle, KGW in Portland, KTVB in Boise and CBS affiliate KREM in Spokane. In addition, the channel maintained content sharing agreements with several other stations.
In addition to rolling news and weather coverage throughout the day, Northwest Cable News produced the nightly sports highlight and discussion program Northwest Sports Tonight (weeknights at 9:00 p.m.) and the call-in shows Gardening with Ciscoe LIVE (which aired Friday evenings at 6:00 p.m.) and Northwest Sports Tonight Game Day (which aired evenings after Seattle Seahawks games during the NFL season). The channel also aired rebroadcasts of sister station KING-TV's lifestyle program Evening each evening at 10:00 p.m. Three other KING-TV programs, Gardening with Ciscoe (a pre-recorded program which the live NWCN program was spun off from), Northwest Backroads and The 5th Quarter (which aired during the NFL season), were also rebroadcast on the channel on weekends. In addition, the channel aired the KGW-produced Sunday evening discussion program Straight Talk. In February 2011, NWCN switched their format from 4:3 to 16:9 aspect ratio. At the time of the channel's shutdown, NWCN was the last news station in the Tegna portfolio that did not air their newscasts in HD (although some of its content has been aired in HD digitally online).[2][3][4][5][6]
Notable former staff
- Shannon O'Donnell – meteorologist (1995–2001 and 2007–09); now weekend evening meteorologist for KOMO-TV
- Elliott Wiser - News Director (1995-1997); now President and General Manager of WTSP-TV in Tampa, Florida
- Richard Reid - Entertainment Reporter and Movie Critic (1999-2004)
References
- Connelly, Joel (2016-10-28). "Tegna pulls the plug on Northwest Cable News". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved 2017-02-04.
- "We just made the switch! NorthWest Cable News is now broadcasting in 16:9 aspect ratio!". facebook.com/NWCN. 2011-02-16. Retrieved 2014-10-26.
- "New design coming to KREM 2 newscasts". krem.com. 2014-10-23. Retrieved 2014-10-26.
- "KING 5's new look". radiodiscussions.com. 2014-06-08. Retrieved 2015-03-07.
- "KTVB unveils new look in full 1080 HD". ktvb.com. 2014-09-28. Retrieved 2015-03-07.
- "KGW has a new graphics look! Want to learn more about it? Click below and Joe Donlon (KGW-TV) will walk you through it". facebook.com/KGW. 2014-07-22. Retrieved 2015-03-07.