Advanced Television

CBS wants 24-hr Global News Channel

May 16, 2014

By Chris Forrester

CBSCBS is resurrecting the idea of a 24 hour all-news channel. CBS chairman Leslie Moonves, speaking on Bloomberg TV, said CBS is working on a plan to launch an all-news digital channel that could go worldwide.

“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to do a 24-hour digital channel taking all the resources that CBS News has … all over the world?” he asked. “There is so much information that we get every day that doesn’t fit into a 22-minute newscast at 6:30 or CBS This Morning. We can go direct digital. So that’s in the early stages, under the tutelage of David Rhodes, the President of CBS News, and it’s an exciting alternative to cable news.”  He said that CBS was looking for internet partners.

The idea is not entirely new, and Moonves talked last year about having a digital ‘on-line’ news channel that would tap into those viewers who were not able to catch the network’s normal broadcast telecast.

The news channel now being talked about is not that far from an idea floated by Ted Turner back in 1985 when Turner assembled a takeover bid for – the then struggling – CBS.  CNN itself had launched in 1980. The idea surfaced again in 1995 when Turner Broadcasting held talks with Microsoft about formulating a bid for CBS.

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