成人X站

When Northwest Cable News signs off at the end of an hour-long retrospective Friday night, a chapter of regional TV journalism will come to a close 21 years after it started.

Jim Rose, president and general manager of , a division of which oversees Northwest Cable News (NWCN), says that news consumption habits have changed everywhere since NWCN went on the air in 1995, and especially around Portland and Seattle.

Related: 成人X站 Radio accidentally saves American history

鈥淚 think the adoption of new technology just happens at a much more rapid-fire pace here than other parts of the country,鈥� Rose said, pointing to smartphones and tablets and other devices that people are turning to for regional and other news. This means the NWCN model no longer made financial sense for TEGNA.

During its two-plus decades, NWCN helped launch the local careers of such well-known Northwest broadcasters as , , and , and it was the place where former Northwest Afternoon host reinvented herself as a news anchor.

On the direct impact side, Jim Rose says that a total of about 25 employees are affected by the shutdown, but that more than half of those have found other jobs within the company here in Seattle or elsewhere with TEGNA.

The 24-hour regional news channel debuted on cable TV systems in much of Washington, Oregon and Idaho 鈥� essentially, the area historically known as 鈥淥regon Country鈥� — in December 1995. But it wasn鈥檛 until May 2, 1996 that viewers really started paying attention.

鈥淭here was an earthquake, and that was the first story to really put us on the map,鈥� said Elliott Wiser, who served as NWCN鈥檚 first news director.

The 5.3 magnitude quake was centered near Duvall and was the biggest to hit the Northwest in years. It came during primetime on a Thursday night, Wiser says, and KING didn鈥檛 want to preempt a new episode of 鈥淪einfeld鈥� (the one-hour special episode called ).

鈥淚t was during ratings period, so KING-TV did earthquake coverage until 鈥楽einfeld鈥� [came on], and then for the first time ever, said [to their viewers] 鈥業f you want continuous [earthquake] coverage, go to Northwest Cable News.鈥� So that was pretty big for us,鈥� Elliott said.

It was pretty big for a lot of people, especially those unlucky souls who were in the Kingdome when the shaking began, watching the Mariners battle the Cleveland Indians. Officials postponed the game a third of the way into the seventh inning, with the Indians leading Seattle 6-4. (SPOILER ALERT: They finished the game the next night and Cleveland won.)

NWCN got perhaps an even bigger boost later that year when a snowstorm struck the Northwest on the day after Christmas.

鈥淣one of the broadcast stations was doing anything because it was right after Christmas,鈥� Wiser said. 鈥淲e had anticipated the snowstorm, so we had put [our staff] people up in hotels, and we went wall-to-wall for two straight days and did some amazing ratings, and that’s where Northwest Cable News really got noticed.鈥�

Wiser says the shutdown of NWCN doesn鈥檛 come as a surprise in this day and age.

鈥淚 think the closing of Northwest Cable News is a signal that the digital era is in full bloom, [and] how rapid things change in media,鈥� Wiser said. 鈥淎nd while it鈥檚 sad, it really is endemic of what鈥檚 happening in media consumption and [how] what worked, [and] what was important 20 years ago, becomes antiquated in 2016-2017.鈥�

Northwest Cable News was a project of KING Broadcasting, a company that traced its roots to the 1940s, when Dorothy Bullitt purchased first a radio station, and then Seattle鈥檚 first TV station, KRSC, which she renamed KING. Under Bullitt鈥檚 leadership (and with help from a core of skilled executives), KING grew to include TV stations in other cities, including in Portland, in Spokane and in Boise.

Dorothy Bullitt passed away in 1989, and her daughters sold KING Broadcasting to then-burgeoning media company Providence Journal in 1991. It was executives of that Rhode Island-based newspaper, broadcasting and cable TV company who were the first to see the potential in creating a regional news channel based in Seattle and then do something about it.

鈥淲e did a lot of research on that,鈥� said Tryg Myhren, who was president and COO of Providence Journal when they acquired KING. Other regional 24-hours news channels had been launched in Washington DC, New England and on Long Island, and Myhren says research they commissioned showed that the Northwest was a logical place to try something similar. KING negotiated with local cable operators and were granted the Channel 2 spot on most systems in the Northwest for what became the 24-hour news service.

Craig Marrs was hired to be the first general manager of NWCN. Before that, he worked for the firm that did the Northwest research for Tryg Myhren and Providence Journal.

Their findings showed that 鈥渢his part of the country was unique in many respects in having a sense of regionalism and shared common interests, and if not interests, certainly a common belief system,鈥� Marrs said.

鈥淚 think there was a very strong belief that the regional nature of our operation would actually be meaningful to viewers, and sure enough, it turned out to be true. [The coverage] always was more Seattle-centric, but it had good doses of news content from all over the Northwest,鈥� Marrs said.

Former news director Elliot Wiser was never fully convinced that the viewing audience across the Northwest was truly cohesive enough to support a regional news channel.

鈥淚 think the flaw in Northwest Cable News from the beginning was the assumption that someone in Boise would want to see news from Portland,鈥� Wiser said, or that viewers in Bellingham would care about news from Spokane, and so on.

Regardless, 20-plus years is a pretty good run, and Craig Marrs says that he and his NWCN colleagues were well aware of the legacy of what the Bullitt family had meant to broadcasting innovation and public service in the Northwest.

鈥淭heir DNA was in the air that we breathed in t,鈥� Marrs said. 鈥淭he Bullitt family had a true heart of a servant. They served the public in a way that was very, very strong and very committed to journalism in that area, and we knew as we came into that magnificent building and that lobby and rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, that we were going through a part of the history of Northwest television with the Bullitt family very much in our mind,鈥� Marrs said.

In this spirit, Marrs says that Northwest Cable News, which was the first all-digital TV newsgathering operation in the country, could even be considered to have been the 鈥渘ew media鈥� of its era.

鈥淭he concept of 鈥榥ew media鈥� at the time was really a descriptor for things like Northwest Cable News, where distribution of 24-hour on-demand news and weather was always at the cable dial, so you always had a chance to have something beyond the national [and] international parts of CNN at the time,鈥� Marrs said.

Marrs also says that the service that NWCN offered, something he describes (and even recites) as a 鈥渕antra鈥� 鈥� 鈥淲e were there whenever you wanted us, wherever you needed us, whenever you needed us, and we would be on the air with stories that we thought made sense to you鈥� 鈥� might have actually had a hand in creating the modern news consumption habits that ultimately led to NWCN鈥檚 demise.

鈥淭hat success ended up, perhaps, creating on some level the industry of putting news on-demand always on the air,鈥� Marrs said. 鈥淎ll the way into the days of having immediacy in your hand [so that now] you can walk down the street watching what you want to watch [on your phone].鈥�

Meanwhile, on old-fashioned TV screens around the Northwest, Marrs, Wiser, Myrhen and Rose all basically concur that local news programming, looking very much what NWCN pioneered here, has expanded over the past 20 years to fill blocks of the morning, midday and afternoon hours on nearly every station. That is, NWCN influenced the creation of local competing programs that likely contributed to its ultimate regional obsolescence.

搁别濒补迟别诲:听Poking fun at Seattle fair, forgotten folk song joked about collapse of Space Needle

Marrs says that while he鈥檚 sad about NWCN signing off, he has fond memories of what the channel accomplished in the years he was there.

鈥淲e had a very talented team of people,鈥� Marrs said. 鈥淭hey pulled together heroically and with very little support and very few staff members to help make it go.鈥�

Elliott Wiser says the sign-off is part of how the news business continues to change, and yet how it remains just that 鈥� a business.

鈥淚 think it’s very difficult nowadays for 24-hour local news channels to prosper because of the movement to digital,鈥� Wiser said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 expensive to run, and TEGNA鈥檚 like every other broadcast company. They’re looking at the bottom line.鈥�

鈥淚 can talk to my Alexa and say 鈥榞ive me the headlines,鈥� [and this] makes it much more difficult to legitimize spending millions of dollars a year on a 24-hour local news channel,鈥� Wiser said.

There鈥檚 one further interpretation beyond the simple shift to digital that鈥檚 worth exploring, particularly in light of the fact that similar 24-hour regional news channels remain in operation in New England, New York, and Florida.

Has the Pacific Northwest simply lost some of its regional cohesiveness? Have Boise, Portland and Spokane 鈥渕atured鈥� as communities, so much so that they no longer need (or, advertisers won鈥檛 support) a Seattle-centric news channel? Or, perhaps Elliott Wiser was onto something 20 years ago when he doubted that viewers around the Northwest really cared about news from outside their immediate area.

Tryg Myhren, who鈥檚 retired from the media industry but still active in other business and community pursuits where he lives in Colorado, says that this 鈥渄e-regionalization鈥� just might be the case.

鈥淚 could just see some newly-minted Microsoft executive sitting there [in Seattle] thinking, 鈥榃hy the hell do I have to watch this program about Boise?鈥欌�� Myrhen said, with a hearty chuckle.

Editor’s Note: The hour-long retrospective of Northwest Cable News鈥� 21-year history will air at 6 p.m. Pacific Time this Friday, January 6. Jim Rose of KING Broadcasting says that the company has not yet decided if the special will be archived and available to watch online as well.

搁别濒补迟别诲:听Seattle group played a pivotal role in healing national wound