The launch of CNN
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2020
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In June 1980, US media mogul Ted Turner launched the first TV station dedicated to 24 hour news, Cable News Network or CNN. Some were sceptical that there would be enough news to stay on air, others warned that the public wouldn't be interested in news 24 hours a day. But it marked a shift in broadcast journalism and paved the way for many more rolling news stations across the world. Rebecca Kesby has been speaking to Senior Executive at CNN, Rick Davis, about how 24 hour news has influenced politics and what role it has to play in holding those in power to account. Rick also takes us back behind the scenes to when he was an output producer on launch day, June 1st 1980.
(PHOTO: Ted Turner attends official CNN Launch event at CNN Techwood Drive World Headquarters in Atlanta Georgia, June 01, 1980 (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
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| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds. |
| 0:29.2 | Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service |
| 0:38.0 | with me Rebecca Keesby. Today we journey back to 1980 and a moment that changed the world of broadcasting and some say politics forever |
| 0:47.0 | the launch of the first 24 hour TV news channel CNN. |
| 0:52.0 | We hope that the cable news TV News Channel, CNN. |
| 0:53.5 | We hope that the cable news network with its international coverage and greater depth |
| 0:58.2 | coverage will bring both in the country and in the world a better understanding of how people from different |
| 1:04.3 | nations live and work together. |
| 1:06.3 | US media tycoon Ted Turner. |
| 1:09.2 | Cable News Network or CNN was his brainchild. |
| 1:13.2 | Ahead of its launch, he outlined his vision. |
| 1:15.8 | Here's the moment, courtesy of CNN's archive. |
| 1:19.3 | Bring together in brotherhood and kindness and friendship and in peace the people of this nation. |
| 1:25.6 | King, |
| 1:26.2 | San Diego, Nicaragua, San Francisco. |
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