Verizon subscribers across the Hudson Valley, Long Island and New Jersey.will lose their local news channel…
New12 with Cablevision could be the only local news service for those area’s…
Verizon Fios will shutter its hyper-local Fios1 News channel this fall, ending its 10-year contract with Rye Brook’s RNN and resulting in pink slips for nearly 150 employees across the Hudson Valley, Long Island and New Jersey.
The move will cut in half the options for hyper-local cable news in the metro NYC area, leaving only Altice’s News12, come Nov. 16.
Verizon spokesman Tony McNary confirmed the move in an email.
“Later this year, Verizon will no longer be offering Fios1 News,” McNary wrote. “We have partnered with RNN for over 10 years to deliver award-winning hyper-local news coverage on Fios1. We wish RNN and their employees well during this transition.”
Richard French III, RNN’s president of news, said Friday that the telecom giant had made it official within the last week, opting out of renewing the contract that had RNN journalists creating nightly Fios1 newscasts and feature reports from Poughkeepsie to Port Chester, from Nyack to the North Shore and into northern New Jersey.
In a letter to employees dated Aug. 17, French said his family’s company had spent a year trying to iron out a contract renewal, without success. French is the face of RNN and Fios1 as host of the nightly public affairs program “Richard French Live” that is carried across all three Fios1 properties.
“Barring a change in direction from Verizon, RNN News will cease providing news programming for Verizon’s Fios1 News network at 12:01 a.m. on Nov…