NY1 News is Time Warner Cable's 24-hour newschannel in New York City. Available on Time Warner Cable throughout the five boroughs on channel 1 – and in parts of Westchester and Hudson Valley as well as Bergen and Hudson counties in New Jersey – NY1 covers the city's five boroughs with more than 40 full-time reporters.
The newschannel is also available on Cablevision in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and can be seen on channel 122 on Time Warner Cable Rochester, channel 111 on Time Warner Cable Syracuse, channel 1011 on Time Warner Cable Binghamton and channel 515 on Time Warner Cable Albany.
NY1 signed-on on September 8, 1992, from its newsroom on Manhattan's West 42nd Street. A decade later, January of 2002, the station moved to its present location in the historic Chelsea Market building.
With an integrated, all-digital production system and more than 1,000 hours of computer-based video storage, the facility represents one of the most advanced newsgathering operations in the world.
NY1 expanded into New York City's Latino community by launching the city's first 24-hour Spanish-language newschannel, NY1 Noticias in June 2003. The channel is available on Time Warner Cable's DTV channel 801.
Station History
The idea for NY1 was born in the spring of 1991, when Time Warner decided to establish a local cable news channel for its New York City cable system. From the start, the idea behind NY1 was to combine advanced news-delivery technologies with a reporter-driven format in which reporters write and shoot their own stories.
The channel was founded by Richard Aurelio, then the president of Time Warner's New York City Cable Group, who ultimately became NY1's first president.
Aurelio hired Paul Sagan as Vice President of News and Programming in September 1991, after which Sagan hired Steve Paulus as News Director, Harlan Neugeboren as Director of Technical Operations and Steven Georges as Director of Finance.
This team created the channel's format, equipped the news facility, and began hiring the news staff in the spring of 1992. By that time, NY1 had found a home at 460 West 42nd Street, the former home of Univisa, a Spanish language television network.
Construction of the 42nd Street facility was completed on July 15, but the channel's newly-hired reporters began work a month earlier by attending a videojournalism "boot camp" in the Time and Life building. While some of the reporters had used their own cameras in other markets, most had had no exposure to the technical side of journalism.
Following their training, the reporters and the rest of the staff took part in an additional two-month training period that included four weeks of real-time rehearsal. A watershed event came in the final weeks of training, with the collapse of a former post office building on Manhattan's West Side. Although not on the air, NY1 covered the story as if the channel was fully operational, interviewing survivors and witnesses and reporting the story more fully than competing television outlets.
Since then, NY1 has won universal acclaim for its comprehensive coverage of the five boroughs, from its extensive coverage of the 1995 visit of Pope John Paul II, to its unsurpassed coverage of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks and their aftermath.
In 1996, NY1 expanded its reach with the launch of NY1.com, which in 2003 was named Best News Website in the region of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, by the Radio-Television News Directors Association.
Today, NY1 News is one of the most-watched cable channels in New York City. Steve Paulus is now the Senior Vice President and General Manager of News and Programming, and Bernie Han is NY1's News Director.
A New Home
By NY1's eighth anniversary the newschannel had outgrown its 42nd Street facility, so a new home was found in the historic Chelsea Market building. Harlan Neugeboren, who by then was Time Warner Cable's Senior Director of New Technology, worked with then-NY1 Director of Operations Jeff Polikoff to design and oversee the construction of the high-tech newsroom.
NY1's digital facility is a virtually tapeless operation in which reporters shoot their stories on digital videotape, then return to the newsroom where the material is ingested into a powerful computer server system. This makes the footage immediately available to the entire staff so that material can be quickly edited and programmed. Graphics and other elements are also available through the system for immediate use.
The Wheel
NY1 News' primary format is the half-hour news wheel. The standard wheel begins with a NY1 Minute, followed by a brief weather forecast and the first group of news reports.
"Weather On The 1s" is repeated at the 11th minute of each wheel, and is followed by the second grouping of news reports and another weather report at the 21st minute of the wheel. The last group of reports at the bottom of the half-hour contains feature stories that comprise the "NY1 Living" rotation.
NY1's 'round-the-clock coverage is supplemented throughout the day with a slate of live news, sports and public affairs programs.
The Result
Since its inception in 1992, NY1 News has become an indispensable community asset and is now the model for cable newschannels nationwide. By combining innovative technology with a strong commitment to reporting, NY1 presents viewers with the most comprehensive New York City news, sports, weather, business and features.
For New Yorkers, NY1 is the only local news worth watching.
•For news coverage from throughout New York State, visit NY1's sister stations: Capital News 9 Albany www.capitalnews9.com
News 10 Now Syracuse www.news10now.com
R News Rochester www.rnews.com