New England Cable News (NECN) is a regional 24-hour cable news

television network A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay television providers. Until the mid ...

owned and operated by

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primar ...

(as part of the NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations division, both ultimately owned by

Comcast Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...

) serving the

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

region of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. It focuses on regional news, though in some low priority timeslots, paid programming and programming from WNBC such as '' Talk Stoop'' and ''Open House'' are seen. NECN, along with NBC owned and operated WBTS-CD (channel 15), Telemundo O&O WNEU (channel 60), and NBC Sports Boston, are based at the NBCU Boston Media Center on B Street in Needham, Massachusetts. NECN also operates several news bureaus in the New England area, including Manchester, New Hampshire;

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...

;

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 census, making it the second- most populous city in New England after ...

; Portland, Maine;

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

; and Burlington, Vermont. New England Cable News maintains a remote camera in the television studio of

Suffolk University Suffolk University is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. With 7,560 students (includes all campuses, 7,379 at the Boston location alone), it is the eighth-largest university in metropolitan Boston. It was founded as a la ...

in downtown Boston. New England Cable News is available across New England in 3.7 million homes and produces several original programs.

Overview

NECN was launched March 2, 1992, as a joint partnership between Continental Cablevision (now part of

) and the Hearst Corporation. On June 18, 2009, Hearst sold its stake in NECN to Comcast, which began to operate it as a division of the Comcast Sports Group and

Comcast SportsNet NBC Sports Regional Networks is the collective name for a group of regional sports networks in the United States that are primarily owned and operated by the NBCUniversal division of the cable television company Comcast. The networks were origin ...

. When Hearst owned a stake in NECN, it used the resources of several New England stations owned and operated by Hearst Television to assist in news coverage of the region. The Hearst stations include Boston ABC affiliate WCVB-TV (early in NECN's existence, the network rebroadcast WCVB's 6:00 p.m. newscast at 8:00 p.m., an arrangement discontinued in 1998);

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

's ABC affiliate WMUR-TV; ABC affiliate WMTW in Portland (NECN and WMTW both maintained bureaus in the

Time and Temperature Building The Time and Temperature Building, originally known as the Chapman Building, and officially 477 Congress Street, is a 14-story office building in downtown Portland, Maine. The building is named after a large three-sided four-element eggcrate d ...

in downtown Portland, though the operations were physically separate and NECN used its own news vehicles in

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and nor ...

); and

WPTZ WPTZ (channel 5) is a television station City of license, licensed to Plattsburgh, New York, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for the Burlington, Vermont–Plattsburgh, New York Media market, market. It is owned by Hearst Television ...

and WNNE,

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provin ...

's two NBC affiliates. Other partnerships NECN maintained in its early years included WGGB-TV in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, th ...

, WGME-TV in Portland (prior to Hearst's 2004 purchase of WMTW),

WTNH WTNH (channel 8) is a television station licensed to New Haven, Connecticut, United States, serving the Hartford–New Haven market as an affiliate of ABC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate WCTX (channel 59), a ...

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...

, WPRI-TV in Providence, Rhode Island, and ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

''. Before its merger into the NBC Owned Television Stations, NECN was a training ground for local news reporters. Some of the better-known reporters who got their start at NECN include ABC's Dan Harris, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux, and

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk s ...

's Maya Kulycky. Several of Boston's current television reporters and anchors also began at NECN. Conversely, NECN has also employed some of the long-lived veterans of the Boston television market, including R. D. Sahl, Tom Ellis and

Chet Curtis Chet Curtis (born Chester Kukiewicz; April 15, 1939 – January 22, 2014) was an American newscaster who co-anchored with his then-wife, newscaster Natalie Jacobson. He was born in Amsterdam, New York and raised in Schenectady, New York.

. In addition to its cable production operations, NECN began to produce a 10:00 p.m. newscast for Boston Fox affiliate WFXT, known as ''Fox 25 News at 10:00'' on September 7, 1993. (subscription content preview) Shortly after Fox Television Stations bought WFXT from the

Boston Celtics The Boston Celtics ( ) are an American professional basketball team based in Boston. The Celtics compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. Founded in 1946 as one of t ...

, it chose not to renew the contract with NECN upon its expiration on October 1, 1995 (the station would launch its own news operation a year later); the next day, the newscast moved to UPN affiliate

WSBK-TV WSBK-TV (channel 38) is an independent television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS owned-and-operated station WBZ-TV (channel 4). Both stations share studios on So ...

and was renamed ''UPN 38 Prime News''. The 10:00 p.m. newscast left the air on October 4, 1998, when WSBK canceled it to focus on sports and entertainment programming; WSBK's

Boston Bruins The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston. The Bruins compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team has been in existence since 1924, making ...

telecasts continued to include NECN-produced news inserts during the 1998–99 season. During the 2000s, NECN partnered with Charter Communications to produce ''Worcester News Tonight'' for its Charter TV3 channel. Comcast systems carry NECN as part of its limited basic tier, usually on a low and prime channel position (channel 6 in most Metro Boston communities). It is also seen on Verizon FiOS on channel 13 as part of local Digital, and on RCN on channel 318 as part of its Signature package. Most other

cable TV 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 ...

systems in New England carry NECN, with the exception of Cox. The service is not available on satellite. On January 18, 2010, NECN began broadcasting in high definition. Most Boston-area Comcast subscribers can watch NECN-HD on Channel 840. Verizon carries NECN-HD on channel 513, also as part of local digital, while RCN subscribers can watch NECN-HD on channel 618. In July 2013, as part of a corporate reorganization resulting from Comcast's purchase of NBC Universal, NECN was moved into the NBC Owned Television Stations division—aligning it with NBC and Telemundo's owned-and-operated stations, although Boston's NBC affiliate WHDH was not owned by the network. On January 1, 2017, low-power station WBTS-LD became Boston's new NBC O&O, replacing WHDH as its affiliate; it shares studios and resources with NECN. WNEU, the Telemundo O&O for Boston, has also shared resources with NECN since launching a news operation in 2015. Under NBCUniversal management, NECN also began sharing resources with the other NBC affiliates in New England: WVIT in New Britain, Connecticut (an O&O), WWLP in Springfield, Massachusetts, WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, and WCSH in Portland, Maine (and its Bangor semi-satellite, WLBZ), along with maintaining its existing relationship with WPTZ. In December 2013, Time Warner Cable announced that NECN would be dropped from its lineups in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts by the end of the year. The future of the Portland, Maine bureau was called into question. The decision was widely criticized by Time Warner Cable customers, who solicited the intervention of public officials on their behalf. TWC subsequently decided to continue carrying NECN. In 2016, NECN became one of the first regional cable networks to be available on the now defunct PlayStation Vue (and the first to be on an over-the-top Internet television service). Due to how PlayStation Vue defined each reason it served, it also extended the network's reach into the New York Tri-State area. It would later be added to more streaming television services such as

FuboTV FuboTV Inc. (stylized as fuboTV) is an American streaming television service serving customers in the United States, Canada, and Spain that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports. Depending on country, channels offered by Fub ...

, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, and

Sling TV Sling TV is an American streaming television service operated by Sling TV LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dish Network. Unveiled on January 5, 2015, at the Consumer Electronics Show, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor a ...

. In December 2016, Charter Spectrum dropped NECN from its basic tier, although it remains available on its digital tiers. In late December 2022, as part of cost-cutting measures, NBCUniversal announced the closure of the NECN Vermont bureau at the end of the year..

Notable on-air staff

* J.C. Monahan - meteorologist, anchor.

Notable former on-air staff

* Liz Cho - anchor at WABC-TV New York *

- long-time Boston news anchor at WCVB * Dan Harris -

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast '' ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include morning news-talk show '' Good Morning America'', '' ...

anchor * Suzanne Malveaux - former CNN anchor and correspondent * Aneesh Raman - former CNN correspondent and speechwriter for President Obama

References

External links

* {{Navboxes, list1= {{Comcast {{Boston TV {{Providence TV {{Portland Maine TV {{Bangor TV {{Presque Isle TV {{Champlain Valley TV {{Springfield MA TV {{Hartford/New Haven TV {{LocalCableNews NECN NBCUniversal networks Local news programming in the United States Mass media in Boston Television channels and stations established in 1992 Television stations in Connecticut Television stations in Massachusetts 1992 establishments in Massachusetts Companies based in Norfolk County, Massachusetts

Overview

Notable on-air staff

Notable former on-air staff

See also

References

External links