Word: cnn
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...CNN will have an annual operating budget of $25 million, compared with more than $100 million each for the news divisions of CBS, ABC and NBC-and they fill only about an hour of air time a day. At the outset, CNN will be able to reach only 2 million of the 16 million homes now wired for cable, while the three major networks can reach almost all of the 76 million U.S. homes with TV sets. But Turner is convinced that there is a greater appetite for news than the networks can satisfy. "Because of ratings pressure, they tend...
...CNN has six domestic news bureaus (in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago and San Francisco), foreign correspondents in Rome and London and a joint bureau with the Canadian Television Network in Peking. It plans to open offices soon in Bangkok, and Amman, Jordan. Headquarters for the operation is an antebellum mansion on 22 acres in Atlanta that cost $8.5 million to acquire and refurbish. CNN has spent $10 million on space-age TV equipment, most of it for the Atlanta studio. Cable systems around the country that subscribe to CNN will receive its programs from a communications satellite...
...Many of CNN's 60 on-camera people were plucked from local stations and are younger and less experienced than their network rivals. CNN President Reese Schonfeld does not expect to scoop NBC, CBS and ABC regularly. "We'll just bring the news to you faster," he says. "We have time to play it and they don't." Though the revolving set in CNN's Atlanta studio was designed by Ron Baldwin, who has done sets for the nets, Turner's news will not be as slickly produced or as visually elaborate as the network...
Many journalists liken CNN to all-news radio minus traffic reports and other local features. The absence of these time-consuming staples could be a problem. Says NBC Washington Bureau Chief Sid Davis: "They are launching a monster that has a tremendous appetite. They've got to produce an awful lot of material to keep that thing functioning...
After its first year, if projections hold true, most of CNN'S revenues will be generated through advertising, a relatively new idea in cable TV that Turner pioneered at WTBS, his Atlanta-based "superstation." WTBS beams sports and entertainment programs via satellite to cable systems around the country. Systems that subscribe to his new service will pay only 200 per household per month (150 if they already carry WTBS). He has signed up 17 advertisers so far, with the biggest commitment ($25 million over ten years) from Bristol-Myers Co. CNN should break even when it has 8 million...