in
Atlanta, Georgia. The network originally was test launched from June 3 to July 14, 1991, at
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport,
Hartsfield-Atlanta International Airport and
O'Hare International Airport, and officially debuted on January 20, 1992, as the
CNN Airport Network. CNN Airport was available in 58 airports in the United States. CNN would pay local
airport authorities for the exclusive rights to run its programming on monitors throughout their terminals. The network also carried sports coverage from
Turner Sports properties, along with other sports rights such as the
NFL and the
Super Bowl from other networks which were contractually bound to only air on airport screens. Commercial breaks instead carried interstitials from other Turner and Time Warner properties, and the ability to
break into programming for airport-wide advisory messages. In 2018, Republican Iowa congressman
Steve King accused CNN Airport of having a monopoly on partisan grounds, proposing an unsuccessful amendment to the
FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 to prohibit a single broadcaster from holding a monopoly over television programming screened at airport terminals. Most American international airports and larger train stations also have shops managed by
Paradies Lagardère or other vendors which license the names of other cable networks such as
CNBC and
Fox News (along with CNN itself) to brand those shops, and likewise screen those channels on the televisions within their premises inexclusive of an airport's advertising and screen deals. On January 12, 2021, CNN's president
Jeff Zucker announced that CNN Airport would cease operations on March 31; Zucker cited several factors and changes in consumer behavior, including the ubiquity of
streaming video on
mobile devices, as having made the network's purpose outdated. ==References==