CNNfn

CNNfn
Country	United States
Ownership
Owner	Turner Broadcasting System
History
Launched	December 29, 1995; 28 years ago
Closed	December 15, 2004; 19 years ago
Replaced by	CNN International (limited markets)

CNNfn (fn = financial news) was an American

AOL Time Warner until December 15, 2004. The network was dedicated to covering financial information and business news, similar to CNBC, TechTV and Bloomberg Television

.

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. However, many cable companies ended their carriage of the channel and did not take CNN International, though it is available through the CNN website and mobile app with TV Everywhere credentials.

CNN continues to maintain a business news vertical on digital platforms, now known as

Dotdash).^[1]^[2]^[3]

Network history

In 1995, Lou Dobbs 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, and eventually returned to CNN to host 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.^[

Money Magazine

to form CNNMoney.

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

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)
5am - 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 fully digital professional broadcasting studio. 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
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 Townsend 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 ticker. Although other broadcasters were showing a moving ticker, the data from these were edited and keyed in manually. 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 otherwise prioritize the display to show 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 rotations. 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 user demographics.
The first to utilize
VXtreme
were startups 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
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
Domino
product to fully automate the draft, approval, and 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 its own website's publishing methods and reduced its webmasters from 15 to 3.