I moved away from Dutchess County almost 20 years ago, but since 30 people have read your post and nobody's answered yet... I'll give it a stab: I think might depend on where in Dutchess County we're talking.
I was in the Wappingers Falls area at the time, and there was a thing called "Local Cable News" which eventually changed its name to "NewsCenter 6." To the best of my knowledge, it was still on channel 6 as of five or six years ago. But I don't really remember what the cable system was at the time, or if it's even still the same company today -- or how large their service area was. But I am pretty sure that different areas of the county were on different cable systems.
Now, it wouldn't surprise me if the different cable companies could have agreed to "merge" all their small local news operations into one "unified" operation with better talent and more resources. With the intensifying competition they're facing from satellite and now phone companies, the cable companies might fare better by offering a slick, polished "only on cable" local news channel, rather than the low-budget "tape it once at 6:00 and rerun it all night" kind of thing most are/were offering individually.
