Once a high priority at AOL Time Warner, the transformation of CNNfn into CNN Money has been put off until the second quarter of next year, due partly to the events of Sept. 11.
Although bits and pieces of CNN Money have appeared on air and online, a full makeover combining Turner Broadcasting System's business-news channel and Time Inc.'s personal-finance magazine, originally announced in January, had already been postponed twice before. A CNN spokesman confirmed the new timetable last week.
CNNfn, which has 19 million subscribers, was designated to be one of the beneficiaries of the synergy resulting from the merger of AOL and Time Warner. In addition to the association with Money magazine, the network was slated to get additional carriage from Time Warner Cable. But at this point, CNNfn is in less than one-fourth of Time Warner Cable's more than 12 million homes.
Until it adds carriage, the network will find it difficult to compete for ad dollars with business-news leader CNBC. Chris Geraci, director of national TV buying for ad agency BBDO, says a network needs at least 30 million households to get on the radar of national advertisers.
Turner spokesman Jim Weiss says the network has gotten ?a ton of positive feedback? on some of its new programming. But in terms of distribution, ?the real issue is rollout of digital more than it is pure acceptance from the MSOs.? A spokesman for Time Warner Cable declined to comment.
Turner and CNN executives from Turner Broadcasting chairman Jamie Kellner down insist that the company remains committed to the change.
In an interview in his Atlanta office, Kellner, who took charge in March, called the combination of CNNfn and Money ?a natural one. We probably would be going on to that more quickly if not for Sept. 11.? But it doesn't have to be done right away. ?That's not an opportunity that's going away. It's not one of the things we have to focus on,? he said.
Kellner postponed the redo once to focus on the relaunch of Headline News and again during the early days of September after hiring former Time magazine managing editor Walter Issacson to run CNN.
Issacson said relaunching CNNfn is not a priority now. ?Our highest priority is to push programming on CNN US and Headline and, for now, not CNN Money,? he said recently in his Atlanta office, adding that ?CNN Money's doing some really good programming now.?
While the network has not been fully rebranded, the CNN Money name has surfaced. CNNfn's morning show, anchored by Jack Cafferty, is called CNN Money Morning. The show, which replaced Ahead of the Curve, was launched Sept. 10 as a simulcast hour on CNN and CNNfn with a second hour on CNNfn alone. That lasted for two days. It has not aired on CNN since Sept. 11. CNN is looking to bring back the show as early as Nov. 19.
The network's website was rebranded as CNN Money last month. Turner and CNN executives describe the website as the first phase of the relaunch.
?We obviously couldn't do the same level of promotion,? says CNNmoney.com editor Craig Matters. ?A combined network-website relaunch all at the same time is a bigger story, [it requires a] bigger promotional vehicle?. We did wrestle with that decision. It just made sense to do it anyway.?
To some degree, the two names may be confusing the network's identity.
?It's unfortunate that it's kind of partially done and not fully done,? says ad buyer Geraci. ?Whatever their reasons for the delay, I think they should try to organize the exposure of the brand.?
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