Chicagoland News 6, better known as CLN6, is a 24-hour cable news station based in Chicago. CLN6 broadcasts from the WWGN-TV studios in Downtown Chicago. CLN6 closed it's Joilet office on August 26th 2009, where it was launched on New Year's Day, 1990. CLN6 is owned by the WMFL Corporation & is seen on Comcast Cable. CLN6 became available on RCN Cable in Chicago in October of 2009. CLN6 reaches 2.5 million households, making it 1 of the largest local news networks in the United States.
WMFL Corporation announced on February 5th 2009, that it would combine WWGN-TV & CLN6, into 1 operation based out of WWGN's "9 Center" facility in Downtown Chicago. According to WMFL Corporation, it's the largest & most powerful news room in the Chicago market. This officially took place on August 27th, 2009. Upon the merger, CLN6 received a new logo & launched it's news in HD with new graphics similar to those of WWGN-TV. Previous to that, all of the WMFL Corporation-Chicago Cluster weather operations, including CLN6's & Newsradio 780 WWGN's, were merged into those of Channel 9.
The channel had always been an exclusive channel to customers of Comcast (and earlier forerunner companies AT&T Broadband, Media One & TCI) until October of 2009, when RCN began to also carry the channel after WMFL Corporation's renegotiation with Comcast to remove the exclusivity agreement
Programming[]
CLN6 focuses primarily on 24-hour rolling news coverage. The CLN6 broadcast is structured into a traditional wheel of news, traffic/transit, weather, sports & features/entertainment, though the wheel is easily interrupted during BREAKING NEWS events within the city or extraordinary national events
- Weekday & Weekend LIVE news broadcasts begins at 4:00 AM
- CLN6 re-broadcasts WWGN 9 News NOW at Midday at 1:00 PM on weekdays, WWGN 9 News NOW at 9:00 (1 hour) at 10:00 PM & WWGN 9 News NOW at 10:00 at 11:00 PM (1 hour) weeknights. CLN6 also re-broadcasts the weekend editions of WWGN 9 News NOW at 9:00 (1 hour) at 10:00 PM, WWGN 9 News NOW at 10:00 (1 hour Saturdays/40 minutes Sundays) at 11:00 PM weekends & WWGN 9's Instant Replay at 11:40 PM, Sundays
- The channel has been used as the SCIllinois overflow feed for the Chicago area, branded technically as SCI-2 or SCI in order to alleviate sports overflows with SCIllinois' properties. By the 2nd quarter of 2010 however, Comcast's Chicago systems will be all-digital (where a digital cable box or a CableCard-compliant receiver is required for all subscribers), thus on all but non Comcast systems, the SCI-2 feed would likely have their own channel slot. A gametime only SCI-2 HD feed is also used on Comcast systems, with cable system tutorials filling the remainder of the network's schedule
- DePaul University college basketball is also carried on CLN6 on a limited schedule
WMFL Corporation Partnerships[]
CLN6 is owned by WMFL Corporation, therefore it receives a lot of content & reporting from other news divisions of WMFL Corporation. News video is shared extensively between CLN6 & WWGN-TV. All of CLN6's weather coverage is produced by WWGN-TV. Chicago Herald newspaper columnists provide in-depth reporting for many feature stories aired on CLN6