CNN: The New AP?

CNN is making a move to take their existing wire service national, bringing them into direct competition with other wire services, foremost including the Associated Press.

Hoping to alleviate financial strain for news organizations suffering from economic slowdown, loss of advertising revenue to the Internet, and declining circulations, CNN hopes to offer a competitive wire service at a lower cost than the AP or competitors like Bloomburg, others. CNN's wire service is currently available for CNN stations, some local TV affiliates, and a few newspapers.

While CNN isn't known for written content, its website cnn.com offers various written news stories. What would be of particular use to newspapers would be shorter international stories that CNN could provide with their 3,000 journalists in over 100 countries.

By stepping onto AP's territory, CNN is making a bold statement about their ambitions in the media industry. A CNN empire that reaches into the newspaper industry would greatly increase their influence. Moreover, by advertising an in-house wire service that will cost them millions in additional capital, CNN is flaunting a revenue stream much more substantial than competitors and contemporaries in the news industry. CNN is satisfied with their blurring of the lines between TV and Internet news, now they move onto blurring the lines between TV and print news.

Perhaps the news industry is not moving from one medium into another, perhaps the new media industry will be an almost omnipresent type of reporting done by multi-media companies. If TV networks and newspapers are both moving into the Internet, both featuring video on the Web, and both facing economic downturn, why not combine all the types of media into one, large, comprehensive "Mediasaurus."

I won't say that CNN will have it easy with its new business venture, but I do believe that the tenacious spirit of Ted Turner lives on. This battle is CNN's to lose.