After an introduction by Ted Turner, the husband and wife team of David Walker and Lois Hart anchored the channel's first newscast.

The company has 42 bureaus (12 domestic, 31 international),[21] more than 900 affiliated local stations (which also receive news and features content via the video newswire service CNN Newsource),[22] and several regional and foreign-language networks around the world.

The network's evening and prime time lineup shifts towards more in-depth programming, including Erin Burnett OutFront at 7 p.m.

[36] The Sunday morning lineup consists primarily of political talk shows, starting with State of the Union co-hosted by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash at 9 a.m.

For the 2014–15 season, after canceling Piers Morgan Tonight (which, itself, replaced the long-running Larry King Live), CNN experimented with running factual and reality-style programming during the 9:00 p.m.

Then-president Jeff Zucker explained that this new lineup was intended to shift CNN away from a reliance on pundit-oriented programs, and attract younger demographics to the network.

[38][39][40] In May 2014, CNN premiered The Sixties, a documentary miniseries produced by Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman which chronicled the United States in the 1960s.

Discovery, it was announced in October 2022 that CNN would cut back on acquisitions and commissions from third-parties as a cost-cutting measure, but Licht stressed that "longform content remains an important pillar of our programming", while the network announced a slate for 2023 that would include commissions such as Giuliani: What Happened to America's Mayor?, United States of Scandal, and The 2010s.

[54][55] CNN's next major redesign was introduced on January 10, 2011, replacing the dark, flat appearance of the 2008 look with a glossier, blue-and-white color scheme, moving the secondary logo box to the opposite end of the screen, and framing its graphics for the 16:9 aspect ratio (which is downscaled to a letterboxed format for standard definition feeds).

[56] On August 11, 2014, CNN introduced a new graphics package, dropping the glossy appearance for a flat, rectangular scheme incorporating red, white, and black colors, and the Gotham typeface.

Inspired by Helvetica Neue and commissioned after consultations with Troika Design Group, the font family consists of 30 different versions with varying weights and widths to facilitate use across print, television, and digital mediums.

[59] Amid poor internal reception to the redesign and the firing of Chris Licht as head of CNN, elements of the prior graphics began to be reinstated later that month, including the bolder typography previously used for lower third headlines.

[67] In February 2022, Zucker was asked to resign by Jason Kilar, the chief executive of CNN's owner WarnerMedia, after Zucker's relationship with one of his lieutenants was discovered during the investigation into former CNN primetime host Chris Cuomo's efforts to control potentially damaging reporting regarding his brother Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York.

[68][69] Kilar announced that the interim co-heads would be executive vice presidents Michael Bass, Amy Entelis, and Ken Jautz.

[71][72] A trio of EVPs, Entelis, Virginia Moseley and Eric Sherling, formed an interim management group, until October 2023, when Mark Thompson, formerly of The New York Times, became CEO.

[73] In one of his first major moves, he kept the executive team under Chris Licht—the "Quad", composed of David Leavy, COO, and three EVPs (Moseley for editorial, Entelis for talent, and Sherling for programming)— all in place, and expanded their responsibilities.

[citation needed] In April 2009, CNN.com ranked third place among online global news sites in unique users in the US, according to Nielsen/NetRatings; this is an increase of 11% over the previous year.

[81][82] 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 news gathering (DNG) system.

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.

[89] In April 2010, CNN announced via Twitter that it would launch a food blog called "Eatocracy", which will "cover all news related to food—from recalls to health issues to culture".

[91] CNNHealth consists of expert doctors answering viewers' questions online at CNN's "The Chart" blog website.

[98] CNN's digital storefront, which sells branded merchandise, household goods, and software, is operated by StackCommerce via partnership.

[105] Since the shutdown of the app, it was announced that CNN intended to use the current talent behind Beme to work on a separate start-up endeavor.

[110] On July 9, 2020, citing "extraordinary circumstances in the current marketplace" and a need to prioritize the company's resources, Westwood One announced that the service would be discontinued on August 30.

It found guests on CNN to have a liberal bias (a "campaign finance score" of −9.7, where 0 is equal airtime, compared to −14.1 for MSNBC and 49.8 for Fox News), which became more pronounced during the Trump administration.

[137][138] In January 2020, CNN settled a multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit from Nick Sandmann, a Covington Catholic High School student involved in an encounter with Omaha tribe elder Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.[139][140] When Chris Licht took over the network in 2022, he expressed an intention to have more Republicans on the air and cut down on opinion-related content.

[137] After being fired in December 2021, former host Chris Cuomo was reported to be seeking $125 million in damages, alleging a breach of agreement.

[143] 2017: CNN received the Prince Rainier III Special Prize at the Monte Carlo TV Festival for the documentary, Midway: A Plastic Island about sea pollution.

[146] 2018: CNN received the George Polk Award of Long Island University for Foreign Television Reporting for uncovering a hidden modern-day slave auction of African refugees in Libya.

[153] 2021: CNN and Clarissa Ward were named finalists for the DuPont-Columbia Award of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for their "Russia's Secret Influence Campaigns" investigation.