Transition to WRNN and targeting New York City
In early 1995, most of WTZA's remaining general entertainment programs were replaced with infomercials. In October 1995, the call letters were changed to WRNN-TV, and the station shifted into a news-heavy operation. With the new call sign also doubling as the on-air slogan–Your Regional News Network, WRNN initially produced news programming seven days a week, and 24 hours a day on weekdays. Its coverage area now included the entire Hudson Valley region, and news bureaus were established in the Capital District and Long Island, within New York state, and in the neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut. The news product, however, was tilted with a lean towards the French family's home base of Westchester County, and a philosophical shift to the left. Richard French III, WRNN's general manager, news director, and host of a nightly call-in talk program, had been active in the New York state Democratic party prior to his father's purchase of WTZA. The station was an affiliate of All News Channel and used stories from that service to augment its national coverage.
Budgetary concerns led to a reduction of news programming in 1999, to weekday evenings only. But WRNN decided the time had come for the station to target New York City, the first time a station on channel 62 served the entire New York City area since W62AA left the air in 1983, albeit this time for cable subscribers. The bureaus in New Jersey and Connecticut were also closed down. Soon thereafter, the operation placed a greater emphasis on New York City news than there had been before, in spite of WRNN's invisible profile within the Five Boroughs. The over-the-air channel 62 signal barely reached the Bronx, the city's northernmost borough, and neither of the city's major cable systems (operated by the predecessors of today's Spectrum and Optimum TV) carried the station. WRNN opened a studio in Manhattan and was successful in getting its evening news shows simulcast on a low-power station there, though it was mostly an effort to gain must-carry coverage on local cable. The shift towards New York City resulted in decreased coverage for its main signal area–for example, WRNN's weather forecasts did not include areas north of Kingston, the station's city of license. Oddly enough, the station applied for must-carry in the entire Albany market several years after the station stopped covering the area outside politics. Within about two years, the simulcast in New York City was gone. It would take a few more years before WRNN would appear on New York City cable, and as part of satellite provider DirecTV's local station package. WRNN opened a new main studio facility in the village of Rye Brook in 2005, though it has retained its facilities in Kingston and Manhattan.
Over the years, WRNN's news offerings have fluctuated. By February 2017, the station aired a combination of regional and international news, including Richard French Live, and Newsline, the English-language newscast of Japanese public broadcaster NHK. In June 2009, WRNN began producing news programming for FiOS1, a news channel that is carried by Verizon Fios systems in the region. In August 2019, Verizon announced that it would not renew its contract with RNN to produce the network's news programming; as a result, FiOS1 ceased operations on November 13, 2019, two days earlier than originally planned.[4][5]
