The channel provides 24-hour rolling news coverage focused primarily on the Buffalo metropolitan area and Western New York.

The channel was launched at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time on March 25, 2009, as YNN Buffalo.

It was initially carried on channel 14 on Time Warner Cable's Buffalo system, before moving to channel 9 in late 2009; YNN also replaced Erie-based NBC affiliate WICU-TV on its Chautauqua County system, local origination channel Time Warner 8 on its Jamestown system and Toronto-based CTV owned-and-operated station CFTO-TV in Toronto on most of its other systems in the region.

In early 2010, YNN Buffalo became the first regional news channel owned by Time Warner Cable to launch a high definition simulcast feed.

On December 16, 2013, the channel rebranded as Time Warner Cable News Buffalo as part of a branding standardization across the provider's news channels (meant to make it as obvious as possible that the channel was only available on Time Warner Cable) that included the introduction of a new graphics and music package.