With the exception of NY1, Spectrum News Southern California, and the Spectrum News channel for Dallas-Fort Worth (which is available over-the-air and on competing cable companies by virtue of KAZD's must-carry status), all of the channels are available only via Charter-owned pay television in their respective markets, not appearing on Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-verse, DirecTV or Dish Network.

The provider later acquired GRC9News in Rochester, New York in 1995 (the result of Time Warner Cable assuming franchise rights in the area), and launched two more channels in Florida in 1997, Bay News 9 in Tampa and Central Florida News 13 in Orlando (which were both spun off to Bright House Networks in 2001).

On February 12, 2010, Time Warner Cable announced plans to have the remainder of its New York–based news channels – with the exception of NY1 – adopt the "YNN" brand that March.

[3] News 8 gradually made the transition first, beginning with the adoption of the "YNN Austin" brand on its Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The reasoning for the name change was due to the perception by the company that Time Warner Cable subscribers did not know that the provider owns its regional news channels and are largely exclusive to its systems (NY1 is an exception, as it is also carried by the other major cable provider in the New York City market, Cablevision).

[6] The revised branding as well as the new graphics and music package went into effect on all of TWC's regional news channels on December 16, 2013 (NY1 utilized a modified version of the logo used by the channel since 2001, amended alongside the "Time Warner Cable News" logo).

Spectrum News operates on a model of not carrying news about violent crimes, common auto accidents and fires (known in the industry as 'if it bleeds, it leads' journalism), unless a story involving one is so large and affecting, that coverage is effectively required to remain competitive.

The channel is available in almost all of western New York except for portions of Cattaraugus County that are served by Atlantic Broadband.

In August 2006, Capital News 9 expanded its reach to systems within eastern New York that Time Warner Cable had recently acquired from Adelphia Communications.

Headquartered in Syracuse, it also operates subfeeds for the Southern Tier and the North Country regions of the state, encompassing the western and northern Adirondacks.

In February 2007, the channel launched a separate feed focused on Binghamton, Elmira, Corning and surrounding areas.

It also serves Southern and Western regions in Texas, adding to Spectrum's existing coverage of Austin and San Antonio.

Charter hired six journalists and curated stories from Maine's largest newspapers for its app and website.

[13] Spectrum News 1 North Carolina serves the entire state of North Carolina, with individual feeds for four regions within the state (the Research Triangle, the Piedmont Triad, Charlotte and Wilmington) that are carried on Spectrum's systems in the respective markets.

For most of the 2010s, Spectrum News North Carolina produced newscasts at traditional times on ABC affiliate WXLV.

It serves Ohio's 3 largest cities, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, as well as the majority of the state with three regional feeds of news and localized weather forecasts.

Taking over the affiliation with the Ohio High School Athletic Association from Spectrum's now-defunct sports channel, Spectrum Sports, Charter's Spectrum News 1 is the home of the Ohio High School Football and Basketball championships, other live high school games, select Dayton Flyers basketball games, and Ohio State athletics coverage.

The channel launched on September 21, 1989 as "WGRC" (for the city's cable provider at the time, Greater Rochester Cablevision); as such, it is the oldest channel among the Time Warner Cable News networks and the only other one (along with Spectrum News Kentucky) that was not launched by the provider.

During this time, it acted as a cable-exclusive general entertainment independent station, airing movies, sitcoms, dramas and cartoons, in addition to a nightly 10:00 p.m. newscast.

In 1992, Greater Rochester Cablevision moved "WGRC" to channel 9 and rebranded it as GRC9News; newscasts began to take up an increasing amount of time in the network's schedule.

All of the Wisconsin feeds originate from studios in downtown Milwaukee within Spectrum's regional headquarters, along with bureaus throughout the state.

The network launched on November 28, 2018, effectively serving as the de facto replacement for Spectrum Sports (a network never added to Charter's legacy systems in the state after the Time Warner Cable purchase; ironically, Time Warner had considered launching an all-news channel in the region, but ultimately opted for a more scalable sports network instead), which had wound down its sports rights due to many of its partners taking their rights in-house or to new digital-only partners.

Some of the latter network's staff remains with Spectrum News 1, along with an existing content agreement with the Green Bay Packers.

Unlike the other Spectrum News channels, NY1 is carried on providers other than Charter (including Altice USA's New York City area systems and the Orlando and Tampa, Florida systems that were operated by Bright House Networks (which was managed by Time Warner Cable)) prior to their acquisition by Charter.

It is also carried some in Spectrum markets outside of the New York Tri-State region as a higher-tier digital offering, with local advertising bedded over with public service announcements.

It currently serves the Tampa Bay area including Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee, Polk, Pasco, Hernando, and Citrus counties.