TWC Delaying Startup of Local News Channel

[John L]

Time-Warner annouced today that it is delaying its start up of a 24 hour local news channel. It was supposed to be launched in Spring 2004. Now I heard it be delayed until sometime in 2005.

Not sure why the postponement?

-John L.

[Tom Snyder]

From Today's Business Journal:

Time Warner drops local news strategy

Time Warner Cable has placed on "indefinite hold" its previously announced plans to launch a 24-hour local news channel for its southeastern Wisconsin subscribers, said Bev Greenberg, Time Warner's vice president of community and government relations.

Greenberg said Time Warner's decision on the channel was "pretty recent" and based on "a combination of research and information." Time Warner has a studio at its downtown Milwaukee offices, but had not in- Greenberg stalled a news set or equipment and had not hired any staff, she said.

Time Warner executives said in the fall of 2002 that it would start a 24-hour local cable news channel in Milwaukee in mid-2004. The company's executives had been promising the news channel since the late 1990s, and Time Warner has introduced similar programs in some of its other markets.

The local cable news channel would have represented the sixth local news operation in Milwaukee, which earlier this year absorbed Sinclair Broadcast Group's "News Central" on WB affiliate WVTV-TV (Channel 18). Greenberg declined to comment on whether local news clutter was a concern for Time Warner Cable.

For the moment, Time Warner is focusing on its Wisconsin on Demand local channel available on digital cable channel 1111 that debuted last month, Greenberg said. The channel is carrying sports, arts and community programming and may involve partnerships with local television stations, she said.

—Rich Kirchen


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