CNN Turns 30

Posted on June 2, 2010

CNN turned 30 on June 1st. The network transformed news coverage with its 24-hour news service that launched on June 1st, 1980. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a good article about CNN's 30th birthday. It may have sagging ratings, but CNN remains a very strong brand.

The revolution Ted Turner launched on June 1, 1980 -- by turning on round-the-clock news for everyone everywhere, then never turning it off again -- keeps trying to make CNN feel older than it is. Sagging ratings, scrappy social-media kids threatening to run rings around it and all.
"It's a 30-year anniversary, but it might as well be 150 or 200," said Brian Solis, a digital analyst and sociologist who advises Fortune 500 companies and others about new media. "What Twitter and other social media is doing today is similar to the impact CNN had 30 years ago."

The Wrap lists several events that CNN covered that helped make it the go-to news channel.

Among the events that helped to cement CNN's presence in the minds of the American public: the Jan. 28, 1986, Challenger disaster; 1987's around-the-clock coverage of the rescue of "Baby Jessica," a toddler who fell into a well in Midland, Texas; the first Gulf War in 1991, with Peter Arnett reporting live as bombs exploded behind him in Baghdad; and even the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a story that was broken by CNN.

Today CNN has its website with breaking news and video at CNN.com. CNN is also active on Twitter, where its @cnnbrk Twitter has almost twice as many followers ad MSNBC owned @breakingnews.