CNN International is revamping its on-air look Feb. 10, ditching its ticker, changing its fonts and bumping its logo to the top of the screen to make its appearance less cluttered, the network says.
The redesign, the network’s biggest in more than five years, includes a new logo, news graphics, title sequences, network IDs, on-air promotions and music.
“The uncluttered screen and enhanced concise graphics will now allow our video and journalism to breathe fully,” said CNN International Senior VP Rena Golden.
The changes, which go into effect at 6 p.m. ET on the 5th, are being made to help viewers navigate through the network’s programming. Headline fonts will be changed to block lettering, which the network says is easier to read, covers less of the screen and is more understandable to viewers whose primary language is not English. Fonts will be color-coded: Breaking news alerts will be black font on a yellow background, news is black and white, business is blue, and sports will be green.
To keep viewers focused on the on-screen story, the network’s scrolling news ticker will be replaced by a rotating news “flipper,” which will display one complete sentence or story at a time. Navigational graphics will tell viewers which programs are coming next and in the hours ahead. The network’s logo, the “CNN” graphic next to a globe, has been moved from the bottom right part of the screen to the top left. Its globe has been updated from a full sphere to a quarter sphere shadow within a box. The word “live” will appear over the shadowed globe for live stories.
CNN International, launched in 1996, reaches 186 million households worldwide but just 4 million in the U.S. It plans to introduce new sets in Atlanta, London and Hong Kong later this year.
