# CNN Turns 32



## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

32 years ago today, cable history was made when CNN flickered to life. What started as a crazy idea in the mind of Ted Turner became a reality on June 1st, 1980 with David Walker and Lois Hart anchoring. The first story? President Jimmy Carter visiting civil rights leader Vernon Jordan in the hospital.

*STORY & VIDEO*: http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn-turns-32_b130729


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## oldschoolecw (Jan 25, 2007)

Holy snap, I feel old
Geez Louise, ESPN's 33 birthday is coming this September 

Where has time gone? 

And now we have the Zombie Apocalypse just starting :lol:


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

David Walker and Lois Hart were anchors at KCRA (Sacramento) until they retired in 2008.


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## trainman (Jan 9, 2008)

The "now here's the news" in the intro reminds me of the announcement when radio station KFWB in Los Angeles switched from Top 40 to an all-news format in 1968: "We'll be back with more music right after the news."


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## AntAltMike (Nov 21, 2004)

Slim Whitman, Zamfir, Roger Whittaker. Buchanan and Hayden. Evans and Novak. Bob Losure. Those are my earliest recollections. 

I don't see how CNN can stay in business. As fate would have it, I clicked on their morning show today for the first time in maybe a decade. Soledad O'Brien. Very polite and deferential presentation of both sides of the "conventional wisdom". No confrontations, nothing novel. In other words, no reason for me to tune in tomorrow. "Piers" is stuffy and his shows are devoid of content.

For my money, you can't beat Al Jazerra for news. Where I live, in Washington, DC, it is broadcast over the air, as is Russia Today. I encourage everyone to watch Russia Today's evening "news" shows. Russia Today is basically a Communist version of Fox News channel, with hourly hosts making snide, demeaning remarks about capitalism.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Lets not get into comparing news channels here. When the other channels have their 30th+ years their birthdays can be celebrated in their own threads. This thread is for CNN's 32nd birthday.

CNN pioneered the format and proved that being news 24/7/365 would work on television. They paved the way for other channels to come along. They were born at a time when cable itself was being born ... someone tried a weather channel, someone tried a sports channel, someone tried a music video channel, several turned their local TV stations into nationwide general entertainment channels. People like Ted Turner found their niche and pushed ahead.

I miss the 30 minute news cycle of CNN Headline News. Some days the stories in the crawl seem to be more interesting than the one the network is devoting most of its time to. (And I've noticed that on more than just CNN.) But going back 32 years to Ted Turner's grand idea who would have thought that 24/7/365 news would have lasted ... and expanded to several popular channels plus other less popular ones?


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

James Long said:


> But going back 32 years to Ted Turner's grand idea who would have thought that 24/7/365 news would have lasted ... and expanded to several popular channels plus other less popular ones?


But it didn't last. None of them do that any more, certainly not CNN or what used to be HNN. Both are about half talk and opinion. Neither are really 'news' at all any more. The former HNN comes closer on Saturday daytime for a few hours.

CNN did not survive 32 years.

And yeah, they crawls are sometimes a lot more interesting. I've actually left a channel on for a while with the sound muted to read the crawls.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

The idea morphed ... Over time it was discovered that news junkies gravitated toward opinions that were either like minded or contrary - or at least a debate. The news/opinion networks have kept up with the marketplace for the day to day programming.

When news breaks the focus changes to what is going on. Major events get covered on these 24/7/365 news channels ... and people know where to turn to find out what is going on. And when news isn't breaking the channels transmit news/opinion shows.


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## mreposter (Jul 29, 2006)

My vague memories of the early days of CNN are that originally the news was the star of the show rather than the personalities. But over time the stars have taken over. Sorry, but I don't care what Anderson Cooper thinks (or anybody on Fox News or MSNBC) just give me the news. 

It's especially bad during natural disasters with reporters going to hurricanes or earthquakes- they become the news. Look at me! I'm standing in 100mph winds! Aren't I brave! No, you're just on an ego trip. And any reporter that spends more time asking a question than silently listening to the answer should be fired. 

It's unfortunate that CNN isn't doing well in the ratings, it's difficult to compete with two networks with such strong personalities. Maybe if they got back to the basics, they might find a new audience.

Oh, and would someone tell Wolf Blitzer to stop shouting through most of his program? He's much more interesting when he calms down and talks normally.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

mreposter said:


> My vague memories of the early days of CNN are that originally the news was the star of the show rather than the personalities.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It's unfortunate that CNN isn't doing well in the ratings, it's difficult to compete with two networks with such strong personalities. Maybe if they got back to the basics, they might find a new audience.


That's just the point. Drop the personalities, get back to NEWS and they just might see the ratings improve.

I don't watch any show on any news network, CNN included where the name of the person is in the show title.


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## Bobsacto (Feb 13, 2008)

TV news has been personality driven long before the advent of CNN. People watched CBS because they wanted the news from Walter Cronkite. Murrow had a distinctive style that appealed to many. The problem I find with the 24hr networks, heck the traditional networks too, is the lack of editing. I have told my kids they should become a producer-editor for a news outlet. You get paid for doing nothing. Throw anything on without checking because it is better to be first rather than to be right.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Bobsacto said:


> People watched CBS because they wanted the news from Walter Cronkite. Murrow had a distinctive style that appealed to many.


But it was still about the news primarily. Cronkite, Murrow, Reasoner, et al may have had their own personal style, but they still focused on the news.

The early days of CNN/HNN were about the news, not who was on camera.

The fairly recent departure of Chuck Roberts from HNN signaled the end of the era in my eyes.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

SayWhat? said:


> The fairly recent departure of Chuck Roberts from HNN signaled the end of the era in my eyes.


The end of "around the world in 30 minutes" a few years ago ended my viewing of Headline News.

When one of the complaints is that the personalities are not strong enough it is hard to argue in favor of personality free news cast. CNN and HLN get their day to day viewers from people who like the personalities they see (and possibly don't like the alternative networks for one reason or another). People who don't watch hardly any news might watch the broadcast networks or nothing at all until a news story breaks.

That is where CNN has a proven strength ... those moments when something happens that gets non-news viewers to change to "a news channel". Something big enough like the tsunami or Arab spring. Those are CNN's best days.

When there is no big story the "non-news viewers" leave. I do not believe that changing (back) to an "around the world in 30 minutes" format will bring them back. When nothing is happening the news channels fight over people who are looking for personality driven news presentation. No personality news doesn't sound like a winner.

That is part of the morph ... it is still the news but just like in the days of Cronkite and Murrow it matters to the viewers who is telling them the news. Can they trust the anchor? the network? When they heard "and that's the way it is" the viewers trusted that they had been told the way it is because they trusted the personality and the network. Now you can get the news from many sources the battle is over the presenters - just as it was when one could only get TV news from the networks once per evening.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Happy birthday to CNN. Too bad Turner's baby was born at the beginning of the end of traditional news reporting in the television industry.

:rant:
HNN was the last cable news channel I watched regularly and I quit it years ago, before 2000. I stopped watching broadcast network news about the same time.

As someone who's first real job was a newspaper reporter naively covering city hall, police, etc., at one time I supported the FCC's right to insist that a certain percentage of each broadcast week be devoted to what it termed "public use", imposing an obligation requiring the licensee to 'ascertain the needs of the community' and then provide program service to foster public understanding of those issues.

That ultimately became formalized as the Fairness Doctrine which in turn was repealed by Congress, coincidentally about the same time as Rupert Murdoch's News Corp launched the Fox network (yeah, I'm paranoid).

It is extremely difficult for a reporter to actually be "fair and balanced" is his/her reporting on events. It is reasonable to attempt to hold a reporter's feet to the fire about his/her reports being accurate and complete.

But whatever else one can say, "reporting" has not ever been the job of a talking head commenting on the news or exchanging comments with other talking heads. Commenting on the news is not news reporting. It is advocating a specific viewpoint. At one time, newspapers seriously attempted to limit this to specific writings called "editorials."

In the very early 1950's TV news struggled with this and briefly found its way out of the mire of political advocacy. Beginning in the 1960's political advocates began the struggle to drag TV news back into the mire, finally gaining some success in the late 1980's which was ironically the same decade that CNN first aired.

Now, of course, news is a profit center for media companies with a focus on entertainment appeal and/or focus on sharing opinions with like-minded (or narrow minded) viewers, either one of which avoids the real costs of news gathering and attracts advertisers.
:rant:


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## lyradd (Mar 20, 2006)

Happy Birthday CNN!

Ratings agency Nielsen show that America's most famous rolling news brand has just experienced its worst month for almost 20 years, parting company with more than 50 per cent of its audience in 12 months.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

mreposter said:


> ...Oh, and would someone tell Wolf Blitzer to stop shouting through most of his program? He's much more interesting when he calms down and talks normally.


They all have consultants who keep telling them to "punch it up", to talk louder and _*emphasize*_ every other word.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

lyradd said:


> Happy Birthday CNN!
> 
> Ratings agency Nielsen show that America's most famous rolling news brand has just experienced its worst month for almost 20 years, parting company with more than 50 per cent of its audience in 12 months.


CNN could really use some hard news to report on ... last year they had the tsunami and Arab spring. This year ... not so much. The biggest news seems to be politics, which is where the "news" networks are already divided. No news for non-news viewers.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

There are PLENTY of news stories currently if someone cared enough about news to cover them.


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## AntAltMike (Nov 21, 2004)

mreposter said:


> ...It's especially bad during natural disasters with reporters going to hurricanes or earthquakes- they become the news. Look at me! I'm standing in 100mph winds! Aren't I brave! No, you're just on an ego trip.


Whenever it is staged as Geraldo versus the disaster, I'm always rooting for the disaster.



> It's unfortunate that CNN isn't doing well in the ratings, it's difficult to compete with two networks with such strong personalities. Maybe if they got back to the basics, they might find a new audience.





SayWhat? said:


> ...Drop the personalities, get back to NEWS and they just might see the ratings improve...


Gong "back to basics" never works for anybody. That is why they left basics to begin with. In 2005, CNN Headline news was getting 200,000 viewers in the evening, so they replaced their news with Nancy "lizard eyes" Grace and get a guaranteed 400,000 a nite when nothing is happening, and a lot more than that whenever any attractive, blond female has been wronged.


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## runner861 (Mar 20, 2010)

I'm trying to remember, did HNN start at the same time as the regular CNN? It seems like it did. I miss that format. The closest thing that I can get to that format is listening to KNX or KCBS radio on the hour. We have all these channels, yet no room for a channel like HNN used to be.


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## ajc68 (Jan 23, 2008)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headline_News

HLN: Initially broadcast as CNN2 on January 1, 1982, the channel was renamed one year later to CNN Headline News. The use of "CNN" in the title of the channel has been intermittent throughout the channel's broadcast years until mid 2000s when it was dropped altogether for HLN.


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## mreposter (Jul 29, 2006)

AntAltMike said:


> Gong "back to basics" never works for anybody. That is why they left basics to begin with. In 2005, CNN Headline news was getting 200,000 viewers in the evening, so they replaced their news with Nancy "lizard eyes" Grace and get a guaranteed 400,000 a nite when nothing is happening, and a lot more than that whenever any attractive, blond female has been wronged.


Sad, but increasingly true. And with the rise of the internet, it is now easier and quicker for people interested in hard news to get it online. Maybe the hard-news audience is no longer large enough nor interested enough in a TV broadcast to maintain decent ratings.

It reminds me a bit of our discussions about "reality" tv. Many of us rail against the rise of reality shows that have overtaken some of our favorite channels, and yet for every one of us that complain 2 or 3 others replace us as viewers. The History Channel's ratings have exploded in the last 2-3 years. Why? Because of reality programming. We may not like it, but everyone else sure does. And many of us may not like personality-driven news shows, but 100's of thousands of others sure do.

Chuck Roberts quietly reading the news of the day may be interesting, but Nancy Grace being an "angry prophet denouncing the hypocrisies of our times" gets the ratings.


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

runner861 said:


> I'm trying to remember, did HNN start at the same time as the regular CNN?


It was a response to Satellite News Channel. SNC was a joint venture between pre-Disney, pre-Cap Cities ABC, and pre-CBS Westinghouse. You got 18 minutes of ABC coverage and 4 minutes from your "local" (actually nearest ABC O&O or Group W station), often really not that local. Plus commercials.

In those days cable often had 12, 20 or 32 channels, and it seemed like the industry was more based on dealmaking. A cable system had one or two of each type of channel. One religious channel. One or two superstations. A news channel. Etc. Even the movie channels were about the same. HBO, Showtime and the Movie Channel often had exactly the same movie on at the same time. Your cable op made the best deal (for himself). The industry was kind of like a resturant. It either had Coke, or Pepsi, or RC, but only one.

Anyway Turner launched CNN2 and then bought SNC in order to shut it down. The staff had one of the all time drunken parties, live on air, on the last day. Never have been able to find a youtube or such of it. Right after that was when the industry changed and capacity started to grow to where multiple channels in the same genre, and then sub-genre, and niche sub-sub-sub-genres, were carried.

IMHO, CNN had the oportunity to be ubiquitious. If it had followed its own path, decided to be a voice and not an echo, the other channels would have never made it. Rather, Turner, and later the coporate HQ at Time Warner, chose to just be a 24 hour version of the same point of view as the three networks and most newspapers, magagines (including Time itself), and it got passed and passed again. It no longer serves a purpose.

HLN, is an entertainment type channel, it hypes a 4 level story like its a 9.5 level story, it cannot be taken seriously. Like the Weather Channel, which is showing documentaries about the Coast Guard or whatever when I want to know the weather, it would be nice if somebody returned to the HLN format.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

SamC said:


> it would be nice if somebody returned to the HLN format.


Live, as it happens, 24 hours a day, 365 days. Every half hour different, not recorded and re-run all day.

Breaking news as the stories hit the wires. Switch to live local feeds around the world (no, not the overdone helicopter following a chase stuff) as stories break.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

SayWhat? said:


> Live, as it happens, 24 hours a day, 365 days. Every half hour different, not recorded and re-run all day.


The last few years before the "around the world in 30 minutes" ended it certainly was NOT live 24/7/365. If you watched for a couple of hours you could see the rotation of stories matched exactly and the anchor making the same minor speaking mistakes at the same point in the presentation. The same people walking through the background at the same time during the broadcast. Portions of the newscast would be updated as needed but it wasn't live hosted 24/7.

The last year or so before the change CNN changed over to a digital playback system and the first few months were horrible. "Live" newscasts that would pause and then start up as if nothing was wrong and there were other playback glitches. They worked out the bugs and got the system running to the point where it wasn't obviously canned - and then left the 30 minute news format.

HLN was run like a radio station with a playlist. Producers would pick the stories, anchors would record the intros and a playlist was built that put it all in the correct order. When the next anchor came to air they would record their own intros and the producer would use those in the playlist. When it was done well it seemed live.

I'm not complaining ... as long as the stories were kept updated when facts changed having it on a playlist was not a bad thing. At least one could get the news without reading the crawl and hoping they would get to that story.


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## trainman (Jan 9, 2008)

James Long said:


> The last year or so before the change CNN changed over to a digital playback system and the first few months were horrible. "Live" newscasts that would pause and then start up as if nothing was wrong and there were other playback glitches.


I was involved in producing the closed-captioning for Headline News while this was going on. It was...interesting.

(Didn't help that we were a separate contracted company, working remotely, and CNN didn't tell us very much about what was happening.)


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

32 years and I've never watched it.


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## mreposter (Jul 29, 2006)

SamC said:


> IMHO, CNN had the oportunity to be ubiquitious. If it had followed its own path, decided to be a voice and not an echo, the other channels would have never made it. Rather, Turner, and later the coporate HQ at Time Warner, chose to just be a 24 hour version of the same point of view as the three networks and most newspapers, magagines (including Time itself), and it got passed and passed again. It no longer serves a purpose.


I'd slightly disagree there. During it's first couple of years CNN was considered to speak with a rather conservative voice, echoing Ted Turner's political point of view at the time. Turner was called "The Mouth of the South," and he was active in business and politics. Especially in those early years, resources were limited, so yeah, they were following the same stories as the other major media outlets, but they often put a Southern Moderate spin on the reporting.

But over time, as the network became more successful and a force in the industry (and Turner married Jane Fonda...) did they move closer to the "mainstream media" point of view. If anything, for many Americans CNN became the face of mainstream media by the late 80s.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

oldschoolecw said:


> Holy snap, I feel old
> Geez Louise, ESPN's 33 birthday is coming this September
> 
> Where has time gone?
> ...


CNN isn't what it was under Ted.


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## Yes616 (Sep 6, 2006)

I was subscribed to Alan Gerry's CVI "Cablevision Industries" that at first added 16 - CNN, 17 - Nickelodeon (7AM-8PM) / ARTS (8PM-Midnight) / Superstation WTBS (Midnight-7AM) All Eastern Time, 18 - ESPN, 19 - USA was only on 5PM-Midnight / Catskill OTB other times and 21 was Cinemax.

I still remember that original CNN music. They never played anything else. I am trying to remember all the weather guys. Mornings were Nick Gregory (in NYC for a very long time now), Dallas Raines (is he still in LA?) was the evening guy and I am ashamed to say I can't remember the afternoon guy's name.

Just like some of you others, I seem to be older than dirt too. lol


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