Tribune editorial staff

To many Lawrence County residents, news from our state is important. Having a network that bills itself "All Ohio. All the time." should help us keep in tune with what is going on around the Buckeye state.

After much coaxing, Adelphia Cable will replace WLWT, an NBC affiliate out of Cincinnati, with the Ohio News Network soon. Due to contractual obligations, ONN will be aired during the times WLWT was normally blacked out for the next 60 days. Once that contract expires, channel 20 will then exclusively become ONN.

While some may be upset with losing WLWT, it is a minor sacrifice to get ONN. Because of conflicting programming with local network affiliates, WLWT is blacked out about 70 percent of the time. ONN, on the other hand, is a 24-hour news network that has no conflicting affiliates.

ONN launched its 24-hour news service in 1997, becoming the first statewide news channel in the country. ONN’s programming includes news coverage, a talk show, live news conferences and breaking news.

In addition to continuous news, weather, and sports, ONN offers programming such as news shows and also broadcasts sporting events such as the state high school football and basketball championship games.

Recently, ONN announced it has surpassed the 1.4 million mark in subscribers. Nearby communities, such as Portsmouth and Jackson, have ONN available to their cable subscribers.

As we already have several news networks such as CNN, Fox News and MSNBC included in our cable service, adding a network that devotes its resources to Ohio news just makes sense.

ONN will do nothing but benefit cable subscribers. Our schools will be able to use it for classroom work and our citizens will be better informed about news of statewide interest.

We welcome ONN to the Ironton community and hope it stays around for many years to come.