13. The growth of cable changed the production of news broadcasts
As television grew in the 1950s, the availability of free over the air broadcast content nearly drove the nascent cable systems out of business. Cable systems could only operate profitably in areas where there was little over the air content to be had. In 1976 Ted Turner created the first system now known as basic cable so that he could watch the Atlanta Braves, which he owned at the time, while he was at his yacht club in Marblehead. By the 1980s cable systems were growing around the United States, offering programming not limited to the choices presented by the three major networks, syndicated UHF stations, and public broadcasting. Network news programs faced a new challenge as the broadcast networks lost viewers.
Turner had another challenge for the networks in mind, which he launched in 1980. Cable News Network, known as CNN, was introduced on June 1, 1980, broadcasting for the first time at 5.00 PM Eastern Daylight Time. Turner promised that the network would remain on the air, broadcasting around the clock nothing but news and news related special programming, until the end of the world. Two years later a companion station, designated CNN2 and later named CNN Headline News, joined in the twenty-four hour a day news broadcasting. Within thirty years of its inception CNN was delivered to 100 million homes in the United States, and its programming was delivered by CNN International to 212 nations around the globe.