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seven-minute packages. The New Jersey channel plays the reports over 24 hours andalso makes them available on demand.From the start, New York 1 also relied on heavy repetition of weather, traffic andother features, including its highly promoted “weather on the ones,” weather forecastsat :01, :11, :21 and so on, around the clock. Borrowed from New York’s all-newsWINS radio, that has broadcast weather and traffic at ten-minute intervals “on theones” for decades, New York 1’s “clock” has been copied by local news channels aroundthe country.“Weather on the ones was a slam dunk for us,” said Smythe, who observed that evensunny central Florida has enough weather news to attract repeat viewers to her station.Some news channels have a spinoff weather channel, a separate cable channel devotedto the time, temperature, forecast and sometimes a live weather radar image.NewsChannel 8, the local 24-hour cable news channel serving the Washington, D.C.area, has a different strategy than most of its local news counterparts around thecountry. Operating from the same newsroom as co-owned WJLA-TV, NewsChannel 8alternates newscasts targeting the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, witheach “zoned” newscast delivered only to cable viewers in the geographical area coveredby that particular newscast.“It goes back to the start of NewsChannel 8, when it only covered Virginia,” saidanchor Nathan Roberts. As cable distribution expanded to D.C. and Maryland discretenewscasts were added to cover those new viewers.All microlocal channels must operate within strict budgets and one almost universaltechnique of addressing economic pressures is a practice that has become widespread atthe local 24-hour news channels (as well as in broadcast newsrooms in smaller cities):single-person coverage, with one person handling both the reporting and photography.Replacing a two- or three-person field crew with one journalist has certainly beeneconomically attractive, but Deborah Potter expressed misgivings about single-personcoverage saying she was not persuaded these changes might reduce the quality of thechannels’ journalism.“I’m not convinced you get good journalism,” Potter said. “There’s no question itcan be done. But does it make a qualitative difference”?Paulus said his calculation was a simple one: use single-person coverage to field 28reporters at New York 1, or deploy two-person crews and cut the total to 15 reporters,changing the coverage, programming and even the very nature of the news channel.And economics are critical: Time Warner, Hearst and other operators of the 24-hourlocal news channels are not producing these news services as philanthropic exercises.While a few channels are still losing money—Knopf said News 12 New Jersey had yetto turn a profit—many were moneymakers. Smythe said the Orlando channel wentinto positive cash flow after 20 months and was in the black two years ahead ofschedule. Paulus said New York 1 has been profitable for years, so much so that it isnow the template for nationwide expansion.“Time Warner is committed to launching news channels in all parts of the country,”Paulus said, noting recent and imminent launches in San Antonio, Houston, and threein New York State; Albany, Rochester and Syracuse.These “zoned” 24-hour local news channels make business sense, “if you look at thedual revenue stream,” according to Sagan. One revenue stream is from commercials,BEA—Educating tomorrow’s electronic media professionals 63