Enter cable television. Its backers sold the new technology as a way to enable excluded voices to shape news and entertainment shows. Crucially, they argued that the route to more diversity was marketplace competition, which they defined as giving consumers the option to choose from an array of programing options. Over the next decades, cable pioneers embraced a very specific business model that chased niche audiences with the content they craved, ultimately transforming the very functioning of television news by tethering it to the metrics of the marketplace.
On June 1, 1980, CNN launched with a promise to deliver “understanding” and “peace” throughout the country and even the globe. In reality, Turner wanted to make money and found entrepreneurial ways to connect cable news to the business of cable television.
Immediately, cable advocates celebrated how a different approach to the news would help the industry’s bottom line as it fought against local regulations mandating rate caps and complicated franchise negotiations. An industry trade group lauded how CNN would boost lobbying efforts by moving “cable off the back pages and into the headlines,” thereby providing “credibility with our legislators and regulators.” And indeed, CNN provided an opportunity for elected officials in both parties to get the television time they craved, making them more sympathetic to the cable industry.
Fulfilling Turner’s promise to “make news the star” (and avoid overpaying celebrity anchors) also meant weaving in commentary and opinion shows to fill the 24 hours of airtime. The network then doubled down on more lucrative “soft news,” first introducing segments—and then eventually entire programs like Moneyline, Showbiz Today, and Larry King Live—dedicated to business, sports, and entertainment news. In the process, CNN reshaped the very definition of what national news could be: it wasn’t what journalists thought the public needed to know, it was what consumers wanted to see.