Freedom Newspapers Planning a 24-Hour Local News Channel : Television: Orange County Cable News will start from scratch and attempt to enter all 400,000 county homes that subscribe to cable.

Orange County will have its own 24-hour local news channel by Labor Day, according to plans announced by Freedom Newspapers Inc., parent company of the Orange County Register.

The company intends to hire television staffers and build studio facilities in the Register’s Santa Ana building by summer. So far, three cable-system operators, covering about half the county’s homes, have agreed to carry the service, according to Alan J. Bell, president of Freedom’s broadcast division. The service will be called Orange County Cable News.

While there would be some world and national coverage, the emphasis will be on Orange County news stories and features, which Bell said are given little play on Los Angeles television news programs.

Stories will be repeated regularly during the day, probably at least once an hour; viewers can tune in and see a full newscast within a specified time, Bell said. There would be live coverage of major news events and some high school sports, he added.

The channel represents a “partnership” with the Register, Bell said, and there will be some sharing of stories and resources. But OCCN will have its own news-gathering staff: “This is not simply a newspaper that is reading its columns on the air,” he said.

Bell said Freedom hopes to make OCCN available in all 400,000 Orange County cable households, and to achieve that goal it will have to sign up Dimension Cable Services, which serves 106,000 of the households.

Dimension is owned by Times Mirror, parent company of The Times, the Register’s rival in the Orange County newspaper market. Bell said he is scheduled to meet with Dimension executives Tuesday.

“It’s going to be a very interesting process,” Bell admitted. “I hope that we can get together despite the rivalry in other parts of our company.”

Richard Waterman, director of corporate affairs for Times Mirror Cable Television, said the Times-Register rivalry would have no influence on whether the Dimension systems would carry the Freedom service.

“We have a very arms-length relationship between newspapers and cable television,” he said. “We’re looking at programming decisions based on what is best for our customers, not any relationship.”

Waterman added, however, that the company has had discussions with several other ventures that hope to offer an Orange County news service.

Cable industry observers said local news currently is attracting a lot of interest. “From a cable operator’s perspective, this would be very welcome,” said Fred Dawson, a New York-based cable television consultant. He noted that the cable industry is often criticized for a lack of locally originated programming and that a local news service could help fill this gap.

OCCN will be supported by advertising. But Dawson noted that rates for even a highly rated local cable show can be very low--often as little as $100 for a 30-second spot. “I don’t see this as something that would give them a lot of profit, given the effort they have to mount,” Dawson observed. “Maybe they can partially justify it as a marketing tool for the newspaper.”

Bell declined to give start-up and operating costs and staffing figures for the new channel, except to call it a “multimillion-dollar” venture with a “sizable staff.” The company expects to absorb operating losses in its first few years, he said. The channel, in both equipment and staff, is starting from scratch. “All that exists now is a plan,” Bell said.

Norman Fein, news director at News 12 Long Island in New York, a 24-hour cable news venture launched in 1986, pegged the start-up cost for a quality, round-the-clock service at $8 million to $10 million, with operating expenses of $9 million to $12 million per year. He estimated that it would take at least five or six years for such a service to begin breaking even.

Still, he praised the proposed service as “an excellent idea,” noting that Orange County is in many respects similar to suburban Long Island. And he said Freedom might be able to gain additional efficiencies by selling advertising on the television news service in conjunction with advertising in the newspaper.

News 12 Long Island, which serves 2.6 million people, is owned by Rainbow Program Enterprises, a 50-50 joint venture of cable operator Cablevision and the NBC television network.

Cablevision owns most of the cable systems on Long Island, which Fein acknowledged made life easier for the news service by eliminating the need to negotiate agreements with multiple cable companies.

Rainbow is considering launching additional local news services in several cities later this year.

KDOC Channel 56, the county’s only commercial broadcast station, currently offers a half-hour nightly news program. It has announced plans to expand to three daily one-hour newscasts later this year. KCAL-TV Channel 9 in Los Angeles has said it will add more Orange County stories as part of a planned expansion of its daily newscasts.