Mostly: Classical

[Sexton O Blake]

CNNfn Network to Close by Mid-December

Timing to do with the election.. hmmm... btw: Wolf is running the Election out of the Nasdaq center...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - CNNfn, the financial news cable network owned by Time Warner Inc., on Thursday said it will cease operating by mid-December after fighting a losing battle against far larger rival CNBC.

The network, launched in 1995, competed for viewers as U.S. interest in the financial markets surged, but it failed to garner wide distribution on the largest U.S. cable operators.

CNNfn is distributed in about 30 million of 100 million U.S. homes. CNBC, owned by General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal division, is available in about 86 million homes, and 200 million worldwide.

"Exponential growth in the television marketplace since CNNfn's 1995 launch has made it challenging to grow distribution for many niche networks in today's highly competitive landscape," Jim Walton, president of the CNN news group, said in a letter to employees on Thursday.

About 50 of CNNfn's 110 employees will remain at the company. About 60 employees will be offered an opportunity to reapply for other jobs within the CNN news group. Executives said separately, about 100 news jobs will be posted at the CNN group, part of it driven by planned changes at its Headline News channel.

Viewers' fascination with financial markets cooled after the bull-market hype of the late 1990s was replaced by reports of white-collar criminal convictions.

CNNfn retooled its focus in 2003 to appeal to individual investors, ceding the role of breaking business news to CNBC. It began running a stock ticker that was delayed for 20 minutes.

Despite turning its first profit last year, under executive vice president Kenneth Jautz's leadership, competitive pressures never ceased.

News Corp.'s Fox News cable network is also mulling plans to launch a business news network on the heels of its top-rated business news show, "Your World with Neil Cavuto."

Walton said CNN will continue to operate the CNNMoney Web site (http://money.cnn.com). "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and "In The Money" shows will continue to air on CNN, Walton said. CNNfn programming, including "Open House" and "Dolans Unscripted," will move to the company's other networks.

On a conference call with reporters, executives said they planned to aggressively look at making programming available via video-on-demand and the Internet in addition to running some shows on CNNfn's two sister networks, CNN and CNN Headline News.

Executives said they are now in discussions with cable operators on how to fill the distribution vacuum left by the shutdown of CNNfn.

Walton said one scenario might be offering more international programming. International programs were broadcasted on CNNfn during the weekends.

One cable industry source said a new channel offering am international news channel from CNN would likely help it expand into more homes.

"Many of the (cable) operators might like to have more international programming going forward," Walton said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041028/tv_nm/media_timewarner_dc