The Newsroom

CNN International & Domestic

(January 2006)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
CH
chinamug
WW Update posted:
glondon posted:

I'm Irish and have watched it since the nineties. Having said that, when I go home, I've never seen anyone watch CNN. Sky News seems to be everywhere.


In Northern Ireland or the Republic? If it's the latter, I'm surprised by this since Sky News has such a strong focus on UK domestic news. (And now that the UK has left the EU, British news isn't all that relevant to other Europeans, but perhaps Ireland is different because of its history.)


Ireland is very different because of It's History. Irish people are news junkies anyway so if they can't get their fix from RTE News it's off to Sky News. Sky got a foothold in the Irish Market in 1989 when RTE showed it for 2 and a half hours a day. Since then It's usually in the top 10 of Stations watched in the Republic.

British News is very relevant to the Republic of Ireland, Cuturally, economically and politcally the two countries are intertwined. I don't know 1 Irish person that hasn't lived in the UK at some point or has relatives that live there. So there's a strong Interest there. Plus there are a lot of UK nationals living in the republic, and probably more on the way because after the 31st of Dec it will be the only EU country they'll be able to move to and work in without needing visas and such like.
CH
chinamug
Just to add that RTE did also show CNN during the night for a few nights when the first Gulf War started in 1990, they had their own summary of the news at the top of each hour. This seems to stop after about a week.
HE
headliner101
glondon posted:
erichernandez posted:
Can I ask, is it abnormal for an Irish person to watch CNN International? It seems among my circle of friends and coworkers, I'm the only one that watches it frequently.

Granted, I've lived in the States so that's what may have started my interest in it (though the version in America is CNN US not CNN International).

I'm surprised people don't watch it more here given the Americanization of British/Irish media in terms of Netflix and other TV Shows.


I'm Irish and have watched it since the nineties. Having said that, when I go home, I've never seen anyone watch CNN. Sky News seems to be everywhere. For those that want international news, I've seen quite a bit of Al Jazeera - no idea why!


How is cable/pay-TV penetration in the RoI? One thing I notice is that most UK hotels I have stepped into does not offer pay-TV channels (including CNN) whereas they are much likelier (though not universally) to be seen in a lot of mid- and upscale continental European hotels.
CH
chinamug
headliner101 posted:
glondon posted:
erichernandez posted:
Can I ask, is it abnormal for an Irish person to watch CNN International? It seems among my circle of friends and coworkers, I'm the only one that watches it frequently.

Granted, I've lived in the States so that's what may have started my interest in it (though the version in America is CNN US not CNN International).

I'm surprised people don't watch it more here given the Americanization of British/Irish media in terms of Netflix and other TV Shows.


I'm Irish and have watched it since the nineties. Having said that, when I go home, I've never seen anyone watch CNN. Sky News seems to be everywhere. For those that want international news, I've seen quite a bit of Al Jazeera - no idea why!


How is cable/pay-TV penetration in the RoI? One thing I notice is that most UK hotels I have stepped into does not offer pay-TV channels (including CNN) whereas they are much likelier (though not universally) to be seen in a lot of mid- and upscale continental European hotels.


Pay-TV in Ireland via Cable/Sky/Vodaphone/Eir is at about 66% of the population and there's probably a few percent more that are using Now TV or Some other Internet Delivered TV. Most of the rest are using some sort of Freesat/freeview service. Either Free to air boxes or Freesat boxes. Less than 10% of Irish homes would only have access to Irish Television (but they probably don't watch that much TV to begin with)

That's how I got into the habit of watching CNN. When I was travelling around in the 90's and into the 2000's it was often the only News station available in a Hotel room. For a time in the early 90's Cablelink transmitted CNN but it was Scrambled, I was told it was for Hotels in the Dublin area.

And just to point out most of the hotels I stayed at were basic, According to CNN even now, it's only the finest hotels CNN is available at... (Another ferrero rocher Ambassador? Very Happy )
headliner101 and AJB39 gave kudos
JK
JKDerry
Cable television has a very long history in the Republic of Ireland, starting properly in 1970 when the Irish broadcaster created a commercial subsidiary RTE Relays to provide cable television first in Dublin, providing BBC One, BBC Two and ITV to cable customers along with the RTE Television channel. Channel 4 was added in November 1982.

RTE Relays was joined by a large number of cable companies which launched during the seventies, with the Irish government limiting new cable services to areas of Ireland which could receive the UK channels via spill over signals from either Northern Ireland or Wales. It wouldn't be until 1981 before the rest of Ireland were permitted to have a cable company, the first being Ireland's second largest city Cork, which had Cork Multi Channel TV launch in 1981 and it provided a great line up of channels by the end of the 80s.
RD
rdd Founding member
chinamug posted:

That's how I got into the habit of watching CNN. When I was travelling around in the 90's and into the 2000's it was often the only News station available in a Hotel room. For a time in the early 90's Cablelink transmitted CNN but it was Scrambled, I was told it was for Hotels in the Dublin area.

I had forgotten about that. You could tune it in and listen to the sound (as with any premium channel on the Cablelink network) but couldn’t subscribe. They wouldn’t offer it to domestic customers until NTL digital launched in or about 2001.

But Sky News - that was and still is available to nearly all multichannel homes (eir TV doesn’t carry it, but you can always download the Sky News app to your Apple TV box and watch it that way). It is far and away the most watched news channel bar perhaps RTÉ News Now (which has a wider reach but virtually no programmes of its own, consisting almost entirely of simulcasts and repeats of RTÉ One/Two programmes). The BBC News Channel is widely available on cable but absent from the Sky EPG which limits its reach (though you can always use manual tuning). I have always wondered why that is - bar the obvious exception of BBC Parliament, all the other BBC channels are on the Sky EPG and BBC Studios has no problem selling the channel to other Irish providers and there are no obvious rights issues which makes me think Sky simply views it as too close a competitor to Sky News.
CH
chinamug
rdd posted:
. I have always wondered why that is - bar the obvious exception of BBC Parliament, all the other BBC channels are on the Sky EPG and BBC Studios has no problem selling the channel to other Irish providers and there are no obvious rights issues which makes me think Sky simply views it as too close a competitor to Sky News.


I'd agree with that, even now it's still the 10th or 11th most-watched station in Ireland, there's advertising to be sold, you don't want people's attention going elsewhere.
HE
headliner101
rdd posted:
chinamug posted:

That's how I got into the habit of watching CNN. When I was travelling around in the 90's and into the 2000's it was often the only News station available in a Hotel room. For a time in the early 90's Cablelink transmitted CNN but it was Scrambled, I was told it was for Hotels in the Dublin area.

I had forgotten about that. You could tune it in and listen to the sound (as with any premium channel on the Cablelink network) but couldn’t subscribe. They wouldn’t offer it to domestic customers until NTL digital launched in or about 2001.

But Sky News - that was and still is available to nearly all multichannel homes (eir TV doesn’t carry it, but you can always download the Sky News app to your Apple TV box and watch it that way). It is far and away the most watched news channel bar perhaps RTÉ News Now (which has a wider reach but virtually no programmes of its own, consisting almost entirely of simulcasts and repeats of RTÉ One/Two programmes). The BBC News Channel is widely available on cable but absent from the Sky EPG which limits its reach (though you can always use manual tuning). I have always wondered why that is - bar the obvious exception of BBC Parliament, all the other BBC channels are on the Sky EPG and BBC Studios has no problem selling the channel to other Irish providers and there are no obvious rights issues which makes me think Sky simply views it as too close a competitor to Sky News.


Why do you think it’s the case that CNNI has a lower penetration rate in most UK hotels compared to RoI and the rest of Europe? It’s kind of ironic that CNNI is effectively headquartered in the UK and yet has poor reach even in major hotel chains.
CH
chinamug
headliner101 posted:
rdd posted:
chinamug posted:

That's how I got into the habit of watching CNN. When I was travelling around in the 90's and into the 2000's it was often the only News station available in a Hotel room. For a time in the early 90's Cablelink transmitted CNN but it was Scrambled, I was told it was for Hotels in the Dublin area.

I had forgotten about that. You could tune it in and listen to the sound (as with any premium channel on the Cablelink network) but couldn’t subscribe. They wouldn’t offer it to domestic customers until NTL digital launched in or about 2001.

But Sky News - that was and still is available to nearly all multichannel homes (eir TV doesn’t carry it, but you can always download the Sky News app to your Apple TV box and watch it that way). It is far and away the most watched news channel bar perhaps RTÉ News Now (which has a wider reach but virtually no programmes of its own, consisting almost entirely of simulcasts and repeats of RTÉ One/Two programmes). The BBC News Channel is widely available on cable but absent from the Sky EPG which limits its reach (though you can always use manual tuning). I have always wondered why that is - bar the obvious exception of BBC Parliament, all the other BBC channels are on the Sky EPG and BBC Studios has no problem selling the channel to other Irish providers and there are no obvious rights issues which makes me think Sky simply views it as too close a competitor to Sky News.


Why do you think it’s the case that CNNI has a lower penetration rate in most UK hotels compared to RoI and the rest of Europe? It’s kind of ironic that CNNI is effectively headquartered in the UK and yet has poor reach even in major hotel chains.


I guess it's because the UK has two really good News Channels that actually provide news. CNN International is a pale imitation of the station that was there 20 years ago. They seem to broadcast domestic CNN an awful lot, often when there is little happening, and there's a lot happening elsewhere in the world.

I haven't stayed in a hotel in Ireland for the past 6 months (the obvious reason!) However any Hotels I've stayed at outside of Dublin recently did not have CNN. They had SKY News, BBC News and one had Al Jazeera, One Hotel in Galway County had SKY TG24 from Italy. (that's a few years back).

Just checking on CNN partner Hotels and they only have two partner Hotels in Ireland, they've over 60 in the UK, one of them being the Trump Turnberry in Scotland Shocked .
Last edited by chinamug on 6 July 2020 5:11am
IS
Inspector Sands
I didn't realise CNN still did the hotel thing, though that's how I still think of them - as hotel TV. I can see why it was done back in the day as multi-channel multi-national TV was a novelty, but in 2020?

The Day Today spoofed their hotel adverts brilliantly,
LV
LondonViewer
headliner101 posted:
rdd posted:
chinamug posted:

That's how I got into the habit of watching CNN. When I was travelling around in the 90's and into the 2000's it was often the only News station available in a Hotel room. For a time in the early 90's Cablelink transmitted CNN but it was Scrambled, I was told it was for Hotels in the Dublin area.

I had forgotten about that. You could tune it in and listen to the sound (as with any premium channel on the Cablelink network) but couldn’t subscribe. They wouldn’t offer it to domestic customers until NTL digital launched in or about 2001.

But Sky News - that was and still is available to nearly all multichannel homes (eir TV doesn’t carry it, but you can always download the Sky News app to your Apple TV box and watch it that way). It is far and away the most watched news channel bar perhaps RTÉ News Now (which has a wider reach but virtually no programmes of its own, consisting almost entirely of simulcasts and repeats of RTÉ One/Two programmes). The BBC News Channel is widely available on cable but absent from the Sky EPG which limits its reach (though you can always use manual tuning). I have always wondered why that is - bar the obvious exception of BBC Parliament, all the other BBC channels are on the Sky EPG and BBC Studios has no problem selling the channel to other Irish providers and there are no obvious rights issues which makes me think Sky simply views it as too close a competitor to Sky News.


Why do you think it’s the case that CNNI has a lower penetration rate in most UK hotels compared to RoI and the rest of Europe? It’s kind of ironic that CNNI is effectively headquartered in the UK and yet has poor reach even in major hotel chains.

Freeview. Simple as that. A lot of hotel systems will be built around freeview. Even the fancy customised systems with VOD offerings will take the linear channels from OTA Freeview.
BF
BFGArmy
chinamug posted:
headliner101 posted:
rdd posted:
I had forgotten about that. You could tune it in and listen to the sound (as with any premium channel on the Cablelink network) but couldn’t subscribe. They wouldn’t offer it to domestic customers until NTL digital launched in or about 2001.

But Sky News - that was and still is available to nearly all multichannel homes (eir TV doesn’t carry it, but you can always download the Sky News app to your Apple TV box and watch it that way). It is far and away the most watched news channel bar perhaps RTÉ News Now (which has a wider reach but virtually no programmes of its own, consisting almost entirely of simulcasts and repeats of RTÉ One/Two programmes). The BBC News Channel is widely available on cable but absent from the Sky EPG which limits its reach (though you can always use manual tuning). I have always wondered why that is - bar the obvious exception of BBC Parliament, all the other BBC channels are on the Sky EPG and BBC Studios has no problem selling the channel to other Irish providers and there are no obvious rights issues which makes me think Sky simply views it as too close a competitor to Sky News.


Why do you think it’s the case that CNNI has a lower penetration rate in most UK hotels compared to RoI and the rest of Europe? It’s kind of ironic that CNNI is effectively headquartered in the UK and yet has poor reach even in major hotel chains.


I guess it's because the UK has two really good News Channels that actually provide news. CNN International is a pale imitation of the station that was there 20 years ago. They seem to broadcast domestic CNN an awful lot, often when there is little happening, and there's a lot happening elsewhere in the world.

I haven't stayed in a hotel in Ireland for the past 6 months (the obvious reason!) However any Hotels I've stayed at outside of Dublin recently did not have CNN. They had SKY News, BBC News and one had Al Jazeera, One Hotel in Galway County had SKY TG24 from Italy. (that's a few years back).

Just checking on CNN partner Hotels and they only have two partner Hotels in Ireland, they've over 60 in the UK, one of them being the Trump Turnberry in Scotland Shocked .


The impression you get is that CNN finds airing international news an unwanted burden - the simulcasts are beyond a joke with how frequent they are (even pre Covid).

As you say if I want UK news and a UK perspective BBC News and Sky News are my go-to and if I want a global news summary Al Jazeera is far better than CNNI. CNNI’s Asia reporting is great but you’d be forgiven at times for thinking nothing happens outside the US, UK or Hong Kong.
As I’ve said too so often the CNNI team are rarely to blame - there’s a load of great anchors, correspondents etc. However, the US operation and those in charge are just abysmal.

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