Happy birthday to CNN that started today, 30 years ago, on 1 June 1980.
Ted Turner started the Cable News Network (CNN) with just 25 people that now consists out of various 24 hour news channels, amongst them CNN International (DStv 401) seen in South Africa and on the rest of the African continent.
Before DStv started 15 years ago this coming October, South Africans got a taste of CNN and its wide reach in truly global television news. TV1 would use CNN's footage during a specific share agreement in the late eighties and early nineties. NNTV, later renamed SABC3, aired
Larry King Live daily until the show was later dropped. TV1 showed specific CNN programming for years in South Africa such as
Style with Elsa Klensch,
Showbiz Today with
Jim Moret and
Lauren Sydney (I watched and recorded it religiously) and even a daily afternoon block during which viewers could see
Business Day with Stuart Varney and Debora Marchini. CNN International was also the first all news channel (until the SABC replaced it with SABC Africa, then SABC News International) at the end of transmission as it's night time feed. Basically my whole late night high school life was spent soaking up CNN International from midnight when I would start to do my homework with CNN on-air talent such as
Frank Sesno and
Peter Arnett. I hardly ever missed a night with
Judy Woodruff and
Bernard Shaw in America and
Hilary Bowker in London all three anchoring together.
Indelible images of news events CNN brought South African viewers over the years include the
OJ Simpson car chase live with
Larry King, the 1986 Challenger disaster, the first Gulf War in 1991 from Baghdad, 9/11 and
Linden Soles confirming early on a Sunday morning during my university years studying journalism that
Lady Diana, the princess of Wales has died. Of course there was also
Christiane Amanpour and her awe-inspiring coverage of the Bosnian war. Do you still remember
James Earl Jones' iconic and booming voice? ''This is CNN.'' And then when something happened and you just
knew it was really very important: ''This is CNN with BREAKING NEWS. . .''
