NBC - NBC PLANNING 24-HOUR LOCAL NEWS CHANNELS

NBC plans to launch a 24-hour news channel in New York to compete with the existing local news channel, New York 1, operated by Time Warner Cable, the New York Times reported today (Thursday). According to the newspaper, NBC's plan calls for a multimillion-dollar reconstruction of the newsroom at WNBC's facilities at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York and integrating its content with the news channel's, which will be accessible not only on the local cable systems in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, but also on the Internet. It is due to premiere late this year or early next. The project is regarded as a pilot program for NBC. John Wallace, president for local media at NBC, told the Times that if it can be regarded as a sustaining business after a year, similar conversations will be undertaken in other major markets where NBC owns its own stations, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia.

08/05/2008