The Orange County Newschannel (often branded as OC Newschannel and OCN) was a regional cable news network pioneering a

rolling news The 24-hour news cycle (or 24/7 news cycle) is 24-hour investigation and reporting of news, concomitant with fast-paced lifestyles. The vast news resources available in recent decades have increased competition for audience and advertiser attent ...

format, serving

Orange County, California Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...

south of the

Greater Los Angeles Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...

area. The channel also pioneered the producer - presenter work format where the reporters self-produced television news items using the then emerging light weight cameras and video digitising ingestion systems based on Apple Computer and Oracle Database software. Technically a network because it was carried by multiple cable operators then in business in Orange County, OCN, launched in 1990 by

Freedom Communications Freedom Communications, Inc., was an American media conglomerate that operated daily and weekly newspapers, websites and mobile applications, as well as ''Coast Magazine'' and other specialty publications. Headquartered at 625 N. Grand Avenue in ...

, was among the earliest regional

24-hour The modern 24-hour clock, popularly referred to in the United States as military time, is the convention of timekeeping in which the day runs from midnight to midnight and is divided into 24 hours. This is indicated by the hours (and minutes) pass ...

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 ...

cable television channels (the first being the

Cablevision Cablevision Systems Corporation was an American cable television company with systems serving areas surrounding New York City. It was the fifth-largest cable provider and ninth-largest television provider in the United States. Throughout its ex ...

-owned

News 12 Networks The News 12 Networks are a group of regional cable news television channels in the New York metropolitan area that are owned by Altice USA. All channels provide rolling news coverage 24 hours a day, focusing primarily on regions of the me ...

, which all launched in December 1986). As early as 1992, OCN began producing news for KTLA (which would eventually attempt to rival the cable channel in its home county). Freedom sold OCN to

New Canaan, Connecticut New Canaan () is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 20,622 according to the 2020 census. About an hour from Manhattan by train, the town is considered part of Connecticut's Gold Coast. The town is bound ...

-based Century Communications, which at the time operated other cable entities in California, most notably in

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. ...

and

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

, in 1996. The network was purchased by Adelphia Cable in 1999 (eventually the name was changed slightly to Orange County News Channel) and struggled with decreasing profits and ad revenue and ended up going out of business on September 7, 2001 after years of losing money in which the network ended up going bankrupt. Throughout its life, OCN had a largely captive audience, as the only other sources for news in Orange County were KTLA and

KOCE-TV KOCE-TV (channel 50) is a PBS member television station licensed to Huntington Beach, California, United States, serving the Los Angeles area. It is owned by the Public Media Group of Southern California alongside the market's secondary PBS membe ...

. OCN's website continued to operate as an internet-only news portal for Orange County, offering daily news to subscribers. Several members of the news staff that had worked at OCN eventually found a new home at KOCE-TV's news desk.KOCE.org - Real Orange
The network was a founding member of th
Association of Regional News Channels
In 2007, the similarly named and formatted OC Channel began, run by

KOCE KOCE-TV (channel 50) is a PBS member television station licensed to Huntington Beach, California, United States, serving the Los Angeles area. It is owned by the Public Media Group of Southern California alongside the market's secondary PBS memb ...

and Chapman University.

References

External links

Historic station makes history, for the last time

So Long, OCN
{{LocalCableNews 24-hour television news channels in the United States Defunct local cable stations in the United States Freedom Communications Television channels and stations established in 1990 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2004 1990 establishments in California 2004 disestablishments in California Defunct mass media in California