News 12+
News 12+ is an American cable news television channel owned by the Altice USA News subsidiary of Altice USA. The channel provides 24-hour live reports on traffic conditions and weather forecasts for the New York City metropolitan area, updated every 5 minutes. The channel is headquartered in Woodbury, New York.
It is an affiliate of the News 12 Networks slate of regional cable news channels in the New York City area. News 12+ is carried on channel 61 on Altice USA systems in the region, and is also available on Verizon Fios and Comcast Xfinity in portions of the Hudson Valley region of upstate New York.
Background
The channel traces back to News 12 Weather. In the early 1990s it would air in the mornings on most Cablevision systems in place of Bravo and E! when they shared a channel on Cablevision in the Long Island area. When Optimum TV launched in 1996, it got a full-time location in those areas.On August 5, 1998, the service was launched as MSG Metro Traffic & Weather as part of the MSG Metro Channels slate ; its format was also revised to include regular updates on traffic conditions in the New York metropolitan area. As a result, it became the first strictly local traffic and weather channel in the Tri-State area; although it faced competition for weather coverage via local broadcast stations and The Weather Channel, the traffic component was the feature that made the channel unique.
On October 5, 2005, the channel was rebranded News 12 Traffic & Weather. The channel launched high definition simulcast services of its five regional feeds in November 2012. In December 2013, News 12 Networks announced it would lay off eight of the channel's ten meteorologists and News 12 Traffic & Weather before a massive staff lay-off. The channel formerly had a full-time staff of 40 reporters and 10 meteorologists and 30 of its 40 traffic reporters; it also announced that the channels would broadcast in a semi-automated manner, with live reports only throughout the morning drive, unless significant traffic or severe weather conditions warrant extended coverage.
In August 2019, Altice rebranded the network as News 12+ and expanded the programming to include short headline news stories, in addition to traffic and weather reports.