“Even though we had built a brand with our existing stations, we decided we could be more efficient,” said Steve Paulus, who oversees Time Warner Cable’s local news division.

Image Steve Ference, a reporter for Your News Now, outside the State Capitol in Albany. Credit... Matt Malette/YNN

A consistent name lets the company save money on graphics and marketing. It encourages more statewide advertising sales. And it fosters more sharing of news coverage. “When they say, ‘I’m John Smith for Your News Now,’ that can play anywhere,” Mr. Paulus said.

NY1 is exempt because, Mr. Paulus said, it is a 20-year-old widely recognizable name.

Some staff members in the local newsrooms were reluctant to give up the brand names they had helped build for years. But Mr. Paulus said “there wasn’t even a blip” of bad reaction when Rochester’s channel, formerly called R News, became the first channel to convert last year.

The channels may run on a shoestring, but they are important in Time Warner Cable. As the primary cable provider in most of the state of New York, its local news channels are a retention tool for cable subscribers; the channels are not available from competing services like Verizon FiOS. “It’s a hedge against competition,” Mr. Paulus said.

NY1 is profitable, and the other channels “are getting there,” Mr. Paulus said.

The company continues to add local channels, in Buffalo last year and in the Hudson Valley last month. For the Hudson Valley channel, about 10 employees work in the field while a dozen anchors, producers and technical staff work out of a regional base in Albany.