CNNfn
Encyclopedia
CNNfn was a U.S.
cable television
news
network operated by the CNN
subsidiary of the media comglomerate Time Warner
from December 29, 1995 and of AOL-Time Warner until December 15, 2004. The network was dedicated to covering financial markets and business news.
It was available in a number of markets, including the U.S. and Australia. In Canada, much of its content was aired on ROB TV (now BNN).
After years of struggling to attract an audience, Time Warner folded CNNfn in late 2004. On some U.S. cable television systems, its slot was given to CNN International
on a full-time basis; previously, CNN International filled CNNfn's schedule in late-nights and weekends. The last few hours of CNNfn's last day, was, in fact, CNN International programming, as CNNfn's programming itself ended for good at noon ET.
The website CNNfn.com survives today as the CNNMoney.com
website, a joint venture with Time Inc.'s Fortune
and Money
magazines.
and Ted Turner
were having heated internal discussions about the direction of CNN. Dobbs was able to convince Turner that letting him start a new channel would be a way to solve both issues. Turner would keep Dobbs working for CNN while giving him his own network to run.
In July 1999, Dobbs quit CNNfn and started his own company, Space.com
. Dobbs would eventually return to CNN and Lou Dobbs Tonight
.
From the start, CNNfn struggled to be picked up by local and national cable operators. In 2004, the official CNNfn network was shut down. However the technologies invented in the early CNNfn days helped launch CNN and the entire broadcasting industry into a new digital era. The CNNfn.com website continued on, and in 2001 merged with Money Magazine
to form CNN/Money.
In the summer of 1996 the top two technology members of Lou Dobb's team, Sam Edge and Nils Lahr, threatened to quit CNNfn if changes were not made to allow them more creative control in implementing new technologies. Additionally they wanted some level of credit and increased internal recognition through proposed promotions. Dobbs tried to keep these key members of the team at CNNfn by offering them higher wages and even went as far as to suggest that he would create an entire company dedicated to high technology research in connection with Gartner
such that the advancements that were made would become knowledge that could be sold to others. However Dobbs was unable to make this happen quickly inside of CNN as there was resistance from Turner and others. In late 1996, Edge moved to CNN in Atlanta and Lahr left to join the startup company VXtreme
which was later purchased by Microsoft and became what is now the Windows Media components within Windows. Dobbs made a last ditch attempt to keep Nils inside CNN by attempting to sue him claiming there were "important" and "unfinished" duties that required his attention at CNNfn. However the lawsuit was thrown out and Lahr was allowed to leave. Shortly after Dobbs quit CNNfn and as promised started his own company Space.com.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
news
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
network operated by the CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
subsidiary of the media comglomerate Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
from December 29, 1995 and of AOL-Time Warner until December 15, 2004. The network was dedicated to covering financial markets and business news.
It was available in a number of markets, including the U.S. and Australia. In Canada, much of its content was aired on ROB TV (now BNN).
After years of struggling to attract an audience, Time Warner folded CNNfn in late 2004. On some U.S. cable television systems, its slot was given to CNN International
CNN International
CNN International is an international English language television network that carries news, current affairs, politics, opinions, and business programming worldwide. CNN is one of the world's largest news organizations. It is owned by Time Warner, and is affiliated with CNN, which is mainly...
on a full-time basis; previously, CNN International filled CNNfn's schedule in late-nights and weekends. The last few hours of CNNfn's last day, was, in fact, CNN International programming, as CNNfn's programming itself ended for good at noon ET.
The website CNNfn.com survives today as the CNNMoney.com
CNNMoney.com
CNNMoney.com is the world's largest business website. The site is the online home of Fortune and Money, and serves as CNN.com's exclusive business site. The site, edited by Chris Peacock, together with the three titles, is part of the Fortune|Money Group, and attracts more than 10.8 million unique...
website, a joint venture with Time Inc.'s Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
and Money
Money (magazine)
Money is published by Time Inc. Its first issue was published in October 1972. Its articles cover the gamut of personal finance topics ranging from investing, saving, retirement and taxes to family finance issues like paying for college, credit, career and home improvement...
magazines.
Network history
In 1995, Lou DobbsLou Dobbs
Louis Carl "Lou" Dobbs is an American journalist, radio host, television host on the Fox Business Network, and author. He anchored CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight until November 2009 when he announced on the air that he would leave the 24-hour cable news television network.He was born in Texas and lived...
and Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
were having heated internal discussions about the direction of CNN. Dobbs was able to convince Turner that letting him start a new channel would be a way to solve both issues. Turner would keep Dobbs working for CNN while giving him his own network to run.
In July 1999, Dobbs quit CNNfn and started his own company, Space.com
Space.com
Space.com is a space and astronomy news website. Its stories are often syndicated to other media outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo!, and USA Today.Space.com was founded by former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs and Rich Zahradnik, in July 1999...
. Dobbs would eventually return to CNN and Lou Dobbs Tonight
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Lou Dobbs Tonight is an American editorial commentary and discussion program hosted by Lou Dobbs, previously broadcast on CNN and currently on Fox Business Network. The hour-long show aired live on evenings every weekday, and was replayed in the overnight/early morning hours. It covered the major...
.
From the start, CNNfn struggled to be picked up by local and national cable operators. In 2004, the official CNNfn network was shut down. However the technologies invented in the early CNNfn days helped launch CNN and the entire broadcasting industry into a new digital era. The CNNfn.com website continued on, and in 2001 merged with Money Magazine
Money (magazine)
Money is published by Time Inc. Its first issue was published in October 1972. Its articles cover the gamut of personal finance topics ranging from investing, saving, retirement and taxes to family finance issues like paying for college, credit, career and home improvement...
to form CNN/Money.
Schedule
The schedule below is taken from the now-defunct site of CNNfn as at 2001 (only from Monday to 12 am on Friday). All the times ET.Weekdays
- 5:30 am - Moneyline
- 6 am - CNNmoney morning
- 8 am - Before Hours
- 9:29 am - Market Call
- 11:50 am - The Biz
- 12:30 pm - The Money Gang
- 3pm - Street Sweep
- 5pm - The N.E.W. Show
- 6pm - Moneyline
- 7pm - Business Unusual
- 7:30pm - The Biz
- 8pm - The N.E.W Show (re-broadcast)
- 9pm - Moneyline (re-broadcast)
- 10pm - The Biz (30-minute edited edition, re-broadcast)
- 10:30pm - Weekend Show rotation
- 11pm - Moneyline (re-broadcast)
- 12am - Business Unusual (re-broadcast)
- 12:30am - World Business This Morning (Live from London)
- 1am - Weekend Show rotation
- 1:30am - World Business This Morning (Live from London)
- 2am - Moneyline (re-broadcast)
- 2:30am - World Business This Morning (Live from London)
- 3am and 3:30am - The Biz (re-broadcast)
- 4am - The N.E.W. Show (re-broadcast)
- 5:30am - Moneyline (re-broadcast)
Technological advances
CNNfn inaugurated many innovations on TV and online. Many of these helped the Internet and broadcasting industry become what they are today. Just a few of these accomplishments include:- The first fully digital studio in the world. From the digital cameras to the production room and beyond, the CNNfn network was the first professional broadcasting fully digital studio ever built. Unlike all other studios at the time, CNNfn could control all cameras with a single joystick. CNNfn claimed the joystick operator was a computer trained worker, not a camera operatorCamera operatorA camera operator or cameraman is a professional operator of a film or video camera. In filmmaking, the leading cameraman is usually called a cinematographer, while a cameraman in a video production may be known as a television camera operator, video camera operator, or videographer, depending on...
. To make this happen, CNNfn worked closely with Avid Systems in creating some of their own first generation broadcasting solutions. Additionally CNNfn and Avid worked with Apple ComputerApple ComputerApple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
to create a hacked version of the Mac operating system as no other system at that time could handle the throughput requirements of real-time digital video editing. Due to these advancements, CNNfn had many issues with labor unions. The unions claimed that the joystick operator should be worth four times as much as a normal camera operator and thus unionized workers should be paid accordingly. - The first online stock quote engine. CNNfn worked with S&P Comstock and TownsendTownsend-United States of America:*Camp Townsend, National Guard training base in Peekskill, New York*Townsend, Delaware*Townsend, Georgia*Townsend, Massachusetts, a town**Townsend , Massachusetts, a census-designated place...
to convert what was then a special direct connection to the stock market into a real-time data feed that could be used by the CNNfn.com website. Prior to this, ticker symbol lookups were typically reserved for private firms and not generally available. - The first automated on-air stock tickerNews tickerA news ticker resides in the lower third of the television screen space on television news networks dedicated to presenting headlines or minor pieces of news. It may also refer to a long, thin scoreboard-style display seen around the front of some offices or public buildings...
. Other broadcasters were showing a moving ticker, however the data from these were edited and typed by hand. Therefore, the lag time in the data being displayed to a view was unpredictable. CNNfn was the first to automatically tap into the ticker feed and create an engine that would "auto-select" hot stocks and use other prioritization policies to automatically display the most relevant stocks. - The first with advertising campaign management. The online advertising market was just being invented while CNNfn's website was being launched. Prior to CNNfn, the online advertising market primarily used weighting for ad rotationAd rotationAd rotation is the practice of showing multiple advertisements in a single location on a web page. Ads may be rotated with each new page load, within a single page load, or both...
s. This would provide a specific advertiser a percentage of views for each page the ad was displayed. CNNfn worked with industry leader NetGravity to develop the first policy engine that would allow CNNfn.com to target advertisements based on demographics and other known data points. - The first to utilize streaming media with broadcast video. At the time, Real NetworksRealNetworksRealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of Internet media delivery software and services based in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The company is the creator of RealAudio, a compressed audio format; RealVideo, a compressed video format; RealPlayer, a media player; RealDownloader, a download...
, VDONet and VXtremeVXtremeVXtreme Inc. was founded in 1995 to develop and market a complete softwaresolution for high-quality business video over the Internet. The company'sscalable software-only video solution allowed organizations to create and...
were startup companies in the streaming media space. No broadcaster saw the Internet as a viable way to reach their audience and they all believed their content to be too valuable to broadcast over the Internet for free. In late 1996, CNNfn.com published 1–2 hours of its programming each day within minutes after the actual show had aired on TV. - The first to utilize Layer 7 load balancing to scale. At the time, DNS round-robin with weighted nodes to account for servers with more or less power or connectivity was the only way to scale a web farmServer farmA server farm or server cluster is a collection of computer servers usually maintained by an enterprise to accomplish server needs far beyond the capability of one machine. Server farms often have backup servers, which can take over the function of primary servers in the event of a primary server...
. CNNfn was working closely with Netscape by also helping the write portions of their software which was incorporated into their 2.x product line. Round robin was not fast enough at taking a server out of rotation when Netscape would crash. Thus CNNfn worked with a few vendors to implement a Layer 7 solution that would instantly know when a server was up or down. This dramatically increased the speed and quality of the CNNfn and CNN websites. - The first to fully automate publishing. By working with Lotus SoftwareLotus SoftwareLotus Software is a software company with headquarters in Westford, Massachusetts...
, CNNfn was the first to use a database back end system to automate the work flow of a publishing system. At that time, even the Wall Street Journal, another startup website, used webmasters to hand convert articles from the editors into HTMLHTMLHyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
and to get them approved by hand through e-mail or visual confirmation from a manager. The web master would then post the story onto the website and edit the referring page to add a link to the new document. CNNfn worked with Lotus's Domino product to fully automate the draft, approval and auto-publishing of its articles. The website was completely automated in re-writing its static home page with the latest stories. As an industry first, this method was published in a few major magazines and studies by others. Within months after its initial deployment, CNN revamped their own website publishing methods and cut its web master count from 15 to three.
In the summer of 1996 the top two technology members of Lou Dobb's team, Sam Edge and Nils Lahr, threatened to quit CNNfn if changes were not made to allow them more creative control in implementing new technologies. Additionally they wanted some level of credit and increased internal recognition through proposed promotions. Dobbs tried to keep these key members of the team at CNNfn by offering them higher wages and even went as far as to suggest that he would create an entire company dedicated to high technology research in connection with Gartner
Gartner
Gartner, Inc. is an information technology research and advisory firm headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, United States. It was known as GartnerGroup until 2001....
such that the advancements that were made would become knowledge that could be sold to others. However Dobbs was unable to make this happen quickly inside of CNN as there was resistance from Turner and others. In late 1996, Edge moved to CNN in Atlanta and Lahr left to join the startup company VXtreme
VXtreme
VXtreme Inc. was founded in 1995 to develop and market a complete softwaresolution for high-quality business video over the Internet. The company'sscalable software-only video solution allowed organizations to create and...
which was later purchased by Microsoft and became what is now the Windows Media components within Windows. Dobbs made a last ditch attempt to keep Nils inside CNN by attempting to sue him claiming there were "important" and "unfinished" duties that required his attention at CNNfn. However the lawsuit was thrown out and Lahr was allowed to leave. Shortly after Dobbs quit CNNfn and as promised started his own company Space.com.