CNN International & Domestic

Amanda finished her first World Sport edition few minutes ago. She did make several appearances reporting from the studio and from a football game this week.

And Hala is from Paris tonight.

Anderson Cooper: what a classy article!

Our own Charles has uploaded a video of Newsroom International , a new globally oriented CNN (USA) program that relies heavily on the resources of CNNI:

The President of CNN Worldwide has resigned. In a statement, he commented that CNN needs new direction and new thinking.

I'd agree with that. I used to use CNN International fairly regularly as an alternative to BBC News, BBC World etc. But I haven't so much as looked at it for a very long time now. It definitely needs a big re-think.

Same here, Rob. It's far from the great channel it used to be. I can take World Report with Rosemary Church and anything anchored by Jim Clancy just "feels" like proper news.

But, the rest of it has become too wishy washy of late. I hope one of the first things the new boss does is axe PMT.

Oh God, just so long as Piers Morgan stays in the US. We don't want him back here thank you!

It's a shame when taking a broad view of CNN's history to see just how rubbish it has become. I can remember CNN being my first experience of a news channel when in 1995 we first got a Sky satellite system (analogue in those days, of course) and we had two news channels, Sky News and CNN. We never watched Sky News as back then the BBC and ITN News were the go-to channels for domestic news, but we used to dip into CNN if anything was happening in the US. It was a fantastic channel back then; I remember one of our favourite programmes was American Edition with Jonathan Mann. My dad and I used to love that show! It was the only place to get American news stories then, especially the ones which didn't make the news bulletins over here. It's a crying shame how it's deteriorated of late. It was still pretty good for a while after the 2006 rebrand; I'd say it's since it's become more American-ised that it's got worse. Probably the last 3 years?

Yes, you're right. The last 3 years in particular have been woeful. And I also agree, the mid-noughties rebrand was rather good, in some respects.

But, they became a bit over zealous with having programs with fancy names, I.e. The iDesk, CTW, MPME, Prism, W1, QMB, and so on.

FFS: just give us the news, LOL.

And yet probably the best of those (The Brief) was axed!

CNN World News: now there's a nice refreshing brand. I'm sure we will see it return in 2013.

Absolutely, that's exactly where they went wrong. When you saw the EPG and it said "World News" you knew what to expect. You see "Prism" and think... wtf?!

My big worry at the moment is that BBC World is going the same way. At one point it was nice and simple: BBC World News as a general rule of thumb, and The World Today as its flagship news programme. Now, we've got "Impact", "The Hub" and several others. I know with the BBC you can generally expect the best quality news no matter what the title, but it still isn't straightforward for viewers. I very much liked BBC World's and CNN's simplicity during the late 90s and early 00s. In another thread, we've been discussing the still impressive ITN branding from 1995-99. The key to its success was simplicity. I think that a little goes a long way in TV. The more flashy something is, the less engaging it is too. Sometimes I think broadcasters think more about how they look than about what actually matters... delivering the news in as clear a way as possible.

If CNN does bring back World News, I hope they bring back this impressive theme:

http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/mivana/m.php?p=cnni_worldnews_2000&spl=1

That brings back memories of Rosemary Church, Ralitsa Vassileva, Shihab Rattansi, Tumi Makgabo..... good times

Yes, the downfall started in 2009 with their rebrand when they ditched World News and replaced it with World Report plus made almost every hour a separate ''show'' presented by different person. Now I'm in a way used to it, at least they still have their great presenters and most of them are old faces. But still, the continuity and feel of a real news channel with a news bulletin on top of every hour is gone. Not to mention weekends dominated by taped shows that only serve to make money. By the way, CNN HQ is very happy with how CNNI's doing, it's making them big bucks, certainly more than domestic. Sadly most of that goes to finance their domestic flop shows and ''stars''. CNNI on the other hand, looks stale, dated and like it's still in 90s. Not to mention it's still not even widescreen. So don't expect any changes in how CNNI operates, it's Atlanta's cash cow and it will keep that role.

Another bad thing is that also took BBC World along with them, in a way. Very silly how BBC got carried away and tried to make same type of presenter driven shows. Plus that program box, even CNN ditched that long time ago.

I actually liked CNNI in the 90s very much. You could argue it had cheap looking graphics, dirty looking newsroom and that sort of stuff, but it was really THE place to get your news from wherever in the world. Anchors were mostly experienced and knowledgeable, many correspondents were true legends and it was overall a high quality product. It's really sad seeing some of their best people sidelined for new "stars" and awkward programmes that have very little to do with news (Piers Morgan Tonight).

And this "appointment to view" policy really killed CNN's appeal. It works with Amanpour, because she offers something different than the others, there's an added value in her programme, but I certainly wouldn't say the same for Kristie Lu Stout, who isn't a terrible anchor or anything, but she just presents World News with a different name. The other night I saw a programme with Isha Sesay and they were showing some black and white photos of her ahead of commercial breaks! Made me wonder what's their target audience these days. It sometimes looks like a badly produced local TV somewhere in the US.

I also noticed there's a lot more sports than before. World Sport sometimes starts at TOTH and a couple of times I saw them interrupting taped programmes to bring some "breaking news" about football transfers or Tour de France winner.

As a longtime viewer, I'm rather disappointed with what they've done in the last few years and hopefully the new boss will clean the house and change some things.

Oh, and I agree with Robert about the music, that was one of the newsiest themes they had! The previous two versions were also great. Sadly, that signature tune is mostly gone today.