Unlike its sister channel, CNN, a North American-only subscription service, CNN International is carried on a variety of TV platforms across the world, and broadcast from studios inside and outside the United States, in Atlanta, New York City,[3] London, Mumbai, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi.

Other early studios in Atlanta were tucked away in various corners of the CNN Center, and the newsroom lacked even a digital clock.

The vast majority of the network's programming originally consisted of simulcasts of the two domestic CNN channels (CNN/US and Headline News).

[5] A new newsroom and studio complex was built in 1994, as CNN decided to compete against BBC World Service Television's news programming.

CNNI emerged as an internationally oriented news channel, with staff members of various national backgrounds, even though some accusations of a pro-U.S. editorial bias persist.

"[6] In 1995, creative director Morgan Almeida defined a progressive rebranding strategy, to target CNNI's diverse global market, making the on-air look less overtly American and with a cleaner, simpler "international" aesthetic going forward.

[8] According to an annual PAX survey, in 1998 and 1999 CNN International was the leading cable and satellite network in Asia in terms of viewership among affluent households and among business decision-makers.

However, on January 1, 2009, CNN International adopted the "lower-thirds" that CNN/US had introduced a month earlier which was inspired by the clean modern design of the CNNI rebrand efforts.

It is now available as a standalone, full-time channel, usually as part of high-tier packages of subscription providers including Time Warner Cable, AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS and Cox Communications.

On January 11, 2009, in a bid to compete directly with Al Jazeera English, the network launched a new production center: CNN Abu Dhabi, based in the United Arab Emirates.

Then, CNN International adapted half-hour shows in its schedule with a new evening prime program for the Middle East viewers, Prism.

[12] Later that year, CNNI cancelled its Asia-Pacific Primetime Show, News Stream, anchored by Kristie Lu Stout, effectively ending production output from its Hong Kong Studios.

CNN has reported that its broadcast agreement in mainland China includes an arrangement that its signal must pass through a Chinese-controlled satellite.

[16] In June 2015, CNN International was made available online in the United States for CNN/U.S subscribers on participating television providers through the CNNgo service.

[19] Apart from during the earliest days of the network, CNNI, until the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, produced almost all of its programming, and generally only simulcast CNN/US's primetime output.

Programs seen on the global network include the Sunday edition of Inside Politics, State of the Union, Fareed Zakaria GPS, Smerconish and some CNN Special Investigations Unit documentaries.

As of August 2014, following the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, a permanent simulcast of CNNI's block of Newsroom with Rosemary Church and Errol Barnett was added to the late-night lineup of CNN/US, serving as a lead-in to Early Start.

Since the beginning of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, CNN International has been augmenting CNN/US programming during hours that usually would be repeats or specials, such as overnights and late in the evening on Saturdays and Sundays.

[19] CNN/US (both SD and HD) is also available on Greater China-based satellite service DishHD, a subsidiary of Dish Network in the United States.

The HD version is available free-to-air within the British Isles, and is provided on satellite and IPTV services, and also live-streamed for U.K. users (and geo-blocked outside the U.K.), through CNN International's official U.K. video site.

In April 2009, CNN.com ranked third place among online global news sites in unique users in the U.S. according to Nielsen/NetRatings; with an increase of 11% over the previous year.

CNN iReport which features user-submitted photos and video, has achieved considerable traction, with increasingly professional-looking reports filed by amateur journalists, many still in high school or college.

[31][32] The company was honored at the 2008 Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for development and implementation of an integrated and portable IP-based live, edit and store-and-forward digital newsgathering system.

This has done little to stem criticism, largely from Middle Eastern nations, that CNN International reports news from a pro-American perspective.

[45][44] In addition, the channel was accused of largely ignoring pro-China voices during the Olympic Torch Relay debacle in San Francisco.

[citation needed] In October 2011, Amber Lyon gave her claims to the Syrian government news agency SANA that she had been directed by CNN to report selectively, repetitively, and falsely to sway public opinion in favor of direct American aggression against Iran and Syria,[46] and that this was common practice under CNN.

She subsequently repeated this claim, addressing the degraded state of journalistic ethics in an interview[47][citation needed] during which she also discussed the Bahraini episode, suggesting paid-for content was also taken from Georgia, Kazakhstan, and other states, that the War on Terrorism had also been employed as a pretext to pre-empt substantive investigative journalism within the U.S., and that following the Bahrain reporting, her investigative department had been terminated and "reorganized", and her severance and employee benefits used as a threat to intimidate and attempt to purchase her subsequent silence.

[49] Lyon also claimed on the Russian news channel RT that CNN reporters, headed by Maddox, have been instructed to over-cover Iran as a form of propaganda, and that CNN International has been paid by the Bahraini government to produce and air news segments intentionally painting them in a positive light.

[51][52] On July 7, 2010, Octavia Nasr, senior Middle East editor and a CNN journalist for 20 years, was fired after she expressed admiration on her Twitter account for a militant Muslim cleric and former Hezbollah leader who had recently died.