N.C. Regional News Net Delayed
By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 10/24/2001 7:22:00 AM
Time Warner Cable's 24-hour news channel planned for North Carolina has delayed its launch -- another venture buffeted by the ripple effect of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Alan Mason, general manager of the proposed channel, to be called News 14 Carolina, confirmed that the venture has delayed a December launch date to March 1.
The channel will serve nearly 500,000 Time Warner Cable customers in Raleigh, Durham, Fayetteville and Goldsboro, N.C.
The venture was moving ahead on schedule. It currently has 12 staffers on board, and its 20,000-square-foot studio is nearly completed. But the employees were scheduled to undergo training alongside workers at sister station New York 1 News in that network's new facility, and there comes the rub.
NY1 employees were at work, packing boxes for their move to the facility in Manhattan's Chelsea Market, when the terrorist attack occurred, said Kirk Varner, vice president of news services for Time Warner Cable.
Since then, the employees have been busy covering the aftermath, the delayed mayoral-primary election and Major League Baseball's Yankees' run for another World Series championship.
As a result, NY1 has not made the move, which was scheduled for late September. Now, that news operation won't shift to its new digs until Jan. 1.
Executives put a positive spin on the delay. Mason said he will have more time for recruiting. Also, instead of sharing a trainer with NY1, the North Carolina employees will have the trainer to themselves, in their own facility.
Varner noted that the new launch date will kick the news operation off on the eve of college basketball's 'March Madness' playoffs.
'That will be great for the market -- that's the biggest event of the year in that part of the country,' he added.
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