The channel provides 24-hour rolling news coverage focused primarily on Rochester, New York and the nearby Genesee River and Finger Lakes regions.

Standard definition feeds come through to those customers who purchase Spectrum's Basic-Tier level of cable service.

The channel launched on September 21, 1989 as a local origination channel using the fictional call sign "WGRC-TV" (standing for "Greater Rochester Cablevision," the area's major cable provider at the time); as such, it is the oldest channel among the Spectrum News networks and one of two that was not launched by Charter Communications or predecessor Time Warner Cable (the other being Spectrum News 1 of Kentucky, which launched under the ownership of Insight Communications).

On February 3, 1992, the service was moved to channel 9, and was rebranded as "GRC9"; while it continued to air morning cartoons and movies in early prime time, the channel's schedule shifted by this time to feature syndicated talk shows from noon to 3:00 p.m., cartoon shorts and animated series from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., sitcoms from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., and talk shows and rebroadcasts of its local newscasts in late night.

After the channel move and rebranding, GRC9's newscasts adopted a presentation model based on that pioneered in 1987 by Moses Znaimer for CITY-TV/Toronto's CityPulse newscasts: its traditional anchor-desk-centered news set was replaced with an open newsroom, in which anchors were positioned in various sections of the newsroom (such as the assignment desk, monitor banks, and a glass-etched map of Rochester).

(Sister network NY1 continued to maintain separate master control operations at its Manhattan facilities.)

Nearly one year following the initial changeover announcement, on September 18, 2017, Spectrum News Rochester retooled to a modernized, 4K-inspired graphics and music package.