The network was dedicated to covering financial information and business news, similar to CNBC, TechTV and Bloomberg Television.

The partnership was folded after Time Warner spun out its publishing assets (and subsequently sale to Meredith Corporation, and later, to IAC's Dotdash).

In 2004, the official CNNfn network was shut down due to declining revenue and limited carriage; moreover, it hadn't renewed its agreement with DirecTV, which would have reduced its coverage further.

[4] However the technologies invented in the early CNNfn days helped launch CNN and the entire broadcasting industry into a new digital era.

Dobbs tried to keep these key members of the team at CNNfn by offering them higher wages and even went as far as to suggest that he would create an entire company dedicated to high-technology research in connection with Gartner such that the advancements that were made would become knowledge that could be sold to others.

In late 1996, Edge moved to CNN in Atlanta, Georgia, and Lahr left to join the startup VXtreme (which was later purchased by Microsoft and became what is now the Windows Media).