CNNFN president resigns

["Chris Beckwith" <beckwith@ime.net>]

First Headline News' president resigned; now it's CNNFN's turn.  C. Shelby
Coffee III has stepped down from the struggling CNN spinoff channel
concentrating on financial news.

Coffee took over the network a few months after founder Lou Dobbs left in a
huff in the Summer of 1999.  Under Coffee's leadership CNNFN went to a 24-hour
schedule on weekdays, beefed up tech news and developed the beginnings of a
West Coast presence on its flagship Moneyline News Hour program.  But
availability to cable subscribers remained a problem; even many Time Warner
systems refused to carry the channel.

Coffee's fate was sealed by the AOL Time Warner merger, which was presaged by a
centralized managment structure resulting in less decision-making power for
channel presidents.  With its merger with AOL imminent, CNN last week announced
massive layoffs.

Take care,
Chris