By Mason Phillips
CNN Insta-News, the latest affiliate channel of parent network CNN, began airing live programming to a worldwide audience yesterday at 6 a.m. Eastern time. The new channel represents a significant departure from existing CNN channels, targeting viewers with extremely limited attention spans. Time-Warner executives were enthusiastic at the launch of CNN Insta-News, and expectations for the channel are riding high. "We saw a vacant niche, and we filled it," said Jeffrey Bewkes, chairman of Time-Warner's Entertainment and Networks Group. "This is going to be big."
CNN Headline News, which has been on the air since 1981, was overhauled in 2001 to attract a younger, more on-the-go audience, but officials were quick to insist that Insta-News will serve a complementary role. "No, I don't see Insta-News replacing Headline News at all," CNN News Group President Jim Walton said at a press conference in Atlanta. "HLN does a great job of delivering round-the-clock information to people who can't sit still long enough for the original CNN. Insta-News, on the other hand, is for the manically busy and attention deficit disorder-sufferers."
The new channel employs a variety of features to grab and hold the interest of viewers. "We've got thirty-second news wrap-ups and bold, colorful graphics on Headline News, but they just don't cut it with people on the cutting edge of inattention and impatience," said Walton, watching the premiere of Insta-News on a giant wall monitor. As a commercial break ended, the Insta-News logo appeared with the accompaniment of thumping, fast-paced techno music and flashes of rapidly pulsating light.
CNN Insta-News anchors are instructed to use as few words as possible and to shout loudly at every opportunity, and signs posted around the Atlanta offices remind them that prepositions and tri-syllabic words are strictly forbidden. Ten-second "Newz Blasts" summarize current world events every five minutes, and important stories are introduced with in-studio pyrotechnics and the piercing blare of the "Big News Siren." "Plane crash! Malaysia! One hundred and forty-three dead!" bellowed anchor Steven Lynch, wearing a bright orange suit and lime green tie as the cameraman executed a sweeping pan over to him. Lynch's face was then replaced onscreen by a series of fast zooms in and out on a picture of the smoking debris field. "BOOM!" Lynch added, flinging a stack of papers in the air.
Lynch paused to smooth his hair and down a fistful of methamphetamines while co-anchor Jessica Stevenson delivered a shrieking eleven-word report on President Bush's Social Security proposal. "Weather now!" Stevenson then screamed, turning things over to Binky the Weather Monkey, a capuchin monkey dressed in a miniature blue tuxedo, who hopped up and down and threw grape jelly at the large weather map behind him.