Northwest Cable News (NWCN) was an American

cable news Cable news channels are television networks devoted to television news broadcasts, with the name deriving from the proliferation of such networks during the 1980s with the advent of cable television. In the United States, the first nationwide ca ...

television channel A television channel is a terrestrial frequency or virtual number over which a television station or television network is distributed. For example, in North America, "channel 2" refers to the terrestrial or cable band of 54 to 60 MHz, with ...

owned by Tegna Media. The channel, which launched on December 18, 1995, provided 24-hour rolling news coverage focused primarily on the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

region of the United States (

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

and northwest

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

). The channel was headquartered out of the studio facilities of Tegna-owned

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

affiliate

KING-TV KING-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Seattle, Washington, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Everett-licensed independent station KONG (channel 16). Both stations share studios at the Home Plate ...

(channel 5) in downtown

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

. The channel was available to 2.9 million residents (through both

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...

and over-the-air) within the region, and, to a lesser extent,

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

, Northern

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, and other areas of

. Some of the network's programming was carried on a sister broadcast station

KTVB KTVB (channel 7) is a television station in Boise, Idaho, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on West Fairview Avenue (off I-184) in Boise, and its transmitter is located at the Bogus Bas ...

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, 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

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. 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 True Crime Network (formerly Justice Network) is an American digital multicast television network that is operated by True Crime Network, LLC, a limited liability company, which is owned by Tegna Inc. The network specializes in true crime, in ...

meant that it was replaced on KTVB-DT3, and it was carried on

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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. Approximately 20 employees were affected, and Tegna offered some of them positions at other Tegna stations.

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 KGW (channel 8) is a television station in Portland, Oregon, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on Jefferson Street in southwestern Portland, and its transmitter is located in the city' ...

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

, KTVB in Boise and

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

affiliate KREM in

Spokane Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Ca ...

. 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 The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West, which they rejoined in 2002 as ...

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).

Notable former staff

* Shannon O'Donnell – meteorologist (1995–2001 and 2007–09); now weekend evening meteorologist for

KOMO-TV KOMO-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Seattle, Seattle, Washington, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue-licensed Univision a ...

* Elliott Wiser - News Director (1995-1997); now President and General Manager of

WTSP-TV WTSP (channel 10) is a television station licensed to St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, serving the Tampa Bay area as an affiliate of CBS. The station is owned by Tegna Inc., and maintains studios on Gandy Boulevard on St. Petersburg's n ...

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- Entertainment Reporter and Movie Critic (1999-2004)

References

External links

{{Tegna 24-hour television news channels in the United States Tegna Inc. Local news programming in the United States Television stations in Seattle Television channels and stations established in 1995 1995 establishments in the United States Television channels and stations disestablished in 2017 2017 disestablishments in Washington (state) Former Gannett subsidiaries Defunct local cable stations in the United States Defunct mass media in California Defunct mass media in Idaho Defunct mass media in Montana Defunct mass media in Oregon Defunct mass media in Washington (state) Defunct mass media in Alaska