Less than one month after announcing it would shutter its own Fios1 local news operations, Verizon Communications and Altice USA have struck a partnership that will bring the cable company’s News 12, i24News and Cheddar news programming to Fios TV customers over the next year, beginning in November.

Verizon said in mid-August that it would shutter its local news division on Nov.16. With the Altice USA partnership, Fios customers will gain access to News 12 in November, followed by content from i24News and Cheddar in 2020.

“We’re all about choice for our customers, and these channel additions bring our customers even more options for robust news and hyperlocal offerings on the Fios channel lineup," Verizon head of content strategy Erin McPherson said in a press release.

News 12 will be available on Channel 535HD in Long Island, the Lower Hudson Valley and New Jersey. Early next year, additional markets will launch in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Connecticut and the Hudson Valley. Verizon customers can also tune in to News 12+, which features quick stories, cultural bites and exclusive originals with weather and commuter updates.

Early next year, Fios customers will get access to i24News, the global current affairs news network, and Cheddar, the digital-first business news network focused on the most innovative products, technologies and services transforming our lives.

Altice purchased Cheddar in April, consolidating its news operations into a single unit -- Altice News -- headed by Cheddar founder and CEO Jon Steinberg.

“Emmy-award winning News 12 is a leading, trusted hyperlocal news brand in the New York Tri-State area, and we’re excited to make News 12 as well as Cheddar and i24NEWS available to Fios customers as we continue to advance Altice as a leader in hyperlocal, national, business and international news,” Steinberg said in a press release.

The Dolan family, owners of the former Cablevision Systems, settled its lawsuit against the Altice USA hours before the case was scheduled to go to trial, according to the Delaware Court of Chancery. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

“The Dolan Family and Altice USA announce that the litigation related to News 12 has been resolved and settled to both parties’ satisfaction,” the family said in a brief statement issued Sept. 3.

The Dolans sued Altice on Sept. 4, 2018, claiming the cable company violated its deal to purchase Cablevision Systems from the company in 2016, when it fired a number of employees at the cable operator’s News 12 division. As part of the deal to purchase Cablevision for $17.7 billion in 2016, Altice apparently promised to maintain News 12’s 462 full-time equivalent employees and operate the news operations for a five-year period in substantially the same way as the Dolans had. Altice laid off about 70 employees in the spring of 2017 and last year was making plans to terminate more, according to the suit.

News 12 Networks consists of seven cable-delivered local news television channels serving Long Island, Westchester, the Hudson Valley, southwest Connecticut, the Bronx, Brooklyn and New Jersey.

Altice USA is building new state-of-the-art TV and digital studios for its News 12 Networks Group local news division, at its longstanding Long Island office location in Bethpage, N.Y.

The project, in the works for about a year, will include a new 40,000-square-foot broadcast center with the latest in TV and digital technologies. The company plans to begin construction on the new studios in early 2019.

“Altice USA through News 12 is committed to providing the best in high-quality hyper-local news, and after a year of preparation we are excited to unveil our plans to invest further and transform our news operations with an expansive and state-of-the-art new TV and digital studio,” said Altice USA News Group president Michael Schreiber in a statement. “Our new and enhanced studios will enable News 12 to continue to be the leader in the hyper-local news space while offering a fresh and modern look and opportunities for new content creation to excite our viewers while attracting new audiences. We have a long-standing history on Long Island and this transformation further demonstrates our continued dedication to the heart of our operations on Long Island.”

The new studio space will include:

• Flexible sets that enable the production of a variety of different content, from traditional broadcasts to digital packages and beyond, as well as spacious newsrooms and public spaces;

• The latest studio technology, including LED lighting, video transport, multi-viewer displays, and routing; and

• An advanced ‘Tech Core’ technology hub, including four new control rooms with advanced studio automation technology, a master control for 10 channels plus, a technical operations center, and core equipment center.

About 74% of tuning hours in Cablevision Systems and Time Warner Cable homes are done outside of primetime, and the average household tunes to 25 channels per month, with 90% of the tuning hours being consumed on 100 networks, the cable companies found in a new report that tabulates tuning data from the New York DMA.

Those findings, from the first quarterly New York Television Audience Insights Report, is based on census-level audience tuning data from more than 3.5 million homes across more than 300 common networks, representing nearly half of the New York DMA and data that can’t be gleaned from traditional measurement methods, the companiess said.

The New York Television Audience Insights Report is based on aggregated data from both service providers that have been analyzed using advanced analytic capabilities.

Among the findings -- with new, more granular insights for marketers that are targeting the influential DMA -- are that roughly 21% of local news tuning (Monday through Friday, 6-9 a.m.) across broadcast and local cable origination stations is exclusively on News 12 and NY1, the cable news channels owned and operated by Cablevision and Time Warner Cable, respectively.

“Since introducing our census-level audience data early last year, we have seen significant growth in demand for more granular audience measurement and analytics,” Ben Tatta, president of Cablevision Media Sales, said in a statement. “We are delighted to work with Time Warner Cable to provide the advertising community more comprehensive and actionable insights for TV audiences and viewership in the New York market.”

“TWC Media is proud to partner with Cablevision on this initiative. In addition to providing TV Tribes analysis of diverse viewing patterns, we can now offer our clients more precise data within the NY DMA,” added Joan Gillman, chief operating officer and executive vice president, Time Warner Cable Media. “As viewing habits continue to evolve, our clients need increasingly sophisticated data and analytics to inform their marketing decisions.”