[jimt1234]

I also remember when CNN first appeared. I was a kid, but I recall people (adults, Boomers) sort of rejected it at first. I think there was a trust issue, not just with CNN, but cable-TV in general. But yeah, I recall people thinking CNN was a passing fad, like it would fail in a year or so because people liked/trusted the local broadcasters and network anchors they'd known for most of their lives.

[SoftTalker]

I just remember it as a channel you could bring up that always had the top headlines right now. Yes they would repeat a lot of it every 15-30 minutes but if you didn't want to wait for the national TV news at 6:00pm you could just turn on CNN and feel informed. It was also the start of people getting addicted to the need to know everything all the time, later amplified 100x by the rise of the internet and mobile phones/media. I remember some people getting addicted to CNN, just had it on all the time.

[Jtsummers]

There was CNN and HNN (CNN2 at one point). CNN had more variety of coverage, interviews, etc. HNN was the one that repeated itself every 30 minutes or so (if nothing new came in), it was more like watching the national evening news at essentially any time of day. Then in the '00s they switched over to do more talking head junk.