News Channel Nebraska (NCN) is an independent, in-state network of commercial radio and television stations in the U.S. state of Nebraska and Sioux City. It is operated by Flood Communications LLC, which was founded by attorney, businessman and Congressman Mike Flood. The television stations are all members of the NCN network.

History

News Channel Nebraska was founded in 2015 at Norfolk, Nebraska. In 2017, Flood Communications announced the addition of Spanish-language network

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, also called Telemundo Nebraska. In addition to commercial advertising, NCN holds

pledge drive A pledge drive is an extended period of fundraising activities, generally used by public broadcasting stations to increase contributions. The term "pledge" originates from the promise that a contributor makes to send in funding at regular interval ...

s and solicits donations in the same manner as non-commercial broadcasters.

Programming

News Channel Nebraska primarily focuses on rolling news coverage similar to the original CNN Headline News and the current

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, whose owner and founder helped establish the format on the News Channel Nebraska stations. Newscasts air every hour and focus primarily on rural Nebraska stories with some coverage of the two major cities, Lincoln and Omaha, and weather forecasts every 10 minutes including former

WTNH-TV 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), ...

meteorologist

Geoff Fox Geoff Fox (born July 26, 1950) is an Emmy Award-winning American television broadcast meteorologist, with his career and expertise the industry covering 4 decades. For 27 years of his career he was at the television station WTNH in New Haven, Co ...

broadcasting from his home studio in

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. The network also includes extensive coverage of high school and small college sports with two broadcast trucks covering rural football and basketball games. There is a "north" and "south" feed which show different sports programs, with the other feed's game rebroadcast on delay. High school sports programming requires a subscription when viewed online. In order to avoid

conflicts of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple wikt:interest#Noun, interests, finance, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, t ...

, articles and news coverage involving Flood are written by the

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or Gray Television affiliates in Nebraska. In March 2020, NCN launched ''Quarantine Tonight'', a show featuring live music from local musicians originally produced as a service to viewers during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

that proved popular enough to continue well past its original planned ending date. Flood was the host of ''Quarantine Tonight'' until he began his run for Congress, since then the program has been hosted by former News Channel Nebraska reporter Austen Hagood. NCN carries some limited syndicated lifestyle programming on weekend mornings, including ''AgPhD'', '' Ron Hazelton's HouseCalls'' and '' P. Allen Smith Garden Style''. * Rolling News ** NCN Daybreak (Mon-Fri 6am-10am) ** NCN Midday (Mon-Fri 10am-4pm) ** NCN Evening (Mon-Thu 4pm-6am, Fri 4pm-Midnight) ** NCN Weekend (Sat-Sun 4pm-Midnight) * Non-News Programming ** ''Quarantine Tonight'' ** High School Football ** Girls High School Volleyball ** High School Basketball **Nebraska Loves Public Schools ** College Football ** Women's College Volleyball

Low-powered television stations

NCN consists of seven low-power TV stations that make up the network, all stations have callsigns beginning with a K, as licensed by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

(FCC). Combined, they reach almost all of eastern and central Nebraska, as well as parts of

Siouxland Siouxland is a vernacular region that encompasses the entire Big Sioux River drainage basin in the U.S. states of South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa. cheetz, George H."Whence Siouxland?" ''Book Remarks'' ioux City Public Library May ...

. The stations are owned by Flood Communications of Nebraska, LLC.

Digital television

Digital channels

The digital signals of NCN's stations are multiplexed:

References

{{Sioux City TV Television stations in Nebraska *