"I'm Austin McConnell, KYX7-123LMNOP News."
— Gregory Austin McConnell, "Why Do Reporters Talk Like That?"
One of the most common go-to names for a fictional TV news program is to add a usually-random letter to "NN" (or in some cases, two letters to "N") as a reference to CNN ("Cable News Network"). Popular choices for the first word in the acronym are a reference to the area the network covers (such as Galaxy or Global) or a reference to the work. Often the logo will be inspired by the CNN logo as well.
Sub-Trope of Brand X. Can overlap with Fun with Acronyms.
Examples:
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Advertisement
- Former Macintosh clone manufacturer (back in the short days when Macs had clones) Power Computing had a multi-media promotional CD with fake television shows on it, and the Tag Line "You're watching PNN, a Power Computing network."
Anime
- Mobile Suit Gundam 00 has JNN. May double as Product Placement in that JNN is a real world network, as it is the news division of TBS, the broadcaster for the series.
- Sonic X had an instance of SXN, "Sonic X Network".
Comic Books
- Grandville has CNN, but it's the main news channel of the French Empire, and stands for Canal des Nouvelles Nationales.
- Superman: Originally appearing in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Lexcorp's news station is sometimes named as LNN. (It's also been WLEX and LexCom at different times.)
- Averted in XIII. The channel broadcasting president Wally Sheridan's "judgement" is ABS, a clear cross of ABC and CBS.
Fan Works
- Jacqueline Lichtenberg's long-running Star Trek fanfiction series Kraith has Newsnet. It only becomes important in the Kraith novel Federation Centennial
, where conspirators agitating for a Klingon-Federation war use interviews with officials to stir up anti-Fed sentiment.
- The Next Frontier has the odd reference to KBS News, the initials standing for Kerbin Broadcasting Service.
- In Origins, the Home Galaxy (of Star Wars fame) has the Galaxy News Network (GNN), Galaxy News Service (GNS), and Nova Network (NN).
Films — Animated
- In Animalympics, the Animalympics news coverage is broadcast on ZOO.
- Bee Movie has BNN (Bee News Network) airing Bee Larry King (do you see a pattern?).
- Cars has RSN (Racing Sports Network).
- Osmosis Jones has NNN. Since it takes place inside the human body, the first N stands for Nerve.
- Shrek 2 features ME! TV (Medieval Entertainment Television), complete with E!-style logo.
- Zootopia has ZNN. The anchors are a female snow leopard and (depending on the region) a male moose (US, UK, Canada and most of Europe), jaguar (Brazil), koala (Australia), panda (China), or raccoon dog (Japan).
Films — Live-Action
- Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues also has a news network called GNN, which the main characters work for.
- Helen Hannah from the Apocalypse film series works for World News Network, WNN.
- The film version of Atlas Shrugged inverts this with NNT.
- The Batman movies Batman Forever and The Dark Knight use GNN, "The Gotham News Network", to provide exposition.
- Countdown to Looking Glass has CVN, which in real life is the U.S. Navy designation for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier — appropriate, given the subject of the film...
- The Flintstones plays with this. The initials CNN are used, but it's called the Cave News Network.
- In France (2021), the fictional television channel France de Meurs works for has a "i" as symbol.
- Buck Williams in the Left Behind (2000) films works for Global News Network, also GNN.
- In Network it's UBS — Union Broadcasting System.
Literature
- The picture book Emily's First 100 Days of School by Rosemary Wells is presented by BNN, or the "Bunny News Network".
- The Kraken Wakes: The protagonist and his wife work as a correspondent and scriptwriter respectively for the English Broadcasting Company, a commercial radio and TV network that's implied to be a fairly recent development.note Interviewees mistakenly believing that they're from The BBC instead is something of a Running Gag.
- The Left Behind book series has GCCNN, which is basically the Global Community owning the original CNN.
- The Star Trek Novel 'Verse has the Federation News Network, later seen in Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Live-Action TV
- Since 24 aired on FOX, it often showed news broadcasts from FOX News, but also sometimes used its own version of CNN called CNB. This also appeared on Homeland and Tyrant (2014), both also by 24 showrunner Howard Gordon.
- Babylon 5 has ISN, the "InterStellar Network News". While at first an independent — if blatantly sensationalist and ratings-driven — network, it becomes the dictatorial Clark Administration's Propaganda Machine starting in Season 3.
- ZNN in the Bellisarioverse. In the very first JAG episode it appears in, "We the People", it seems to inexplicably stand for "Satellite News Network".
- Brass Eye would air broadcasts from affiliate station 10NN in all news stories from the United States, as did the preceding series from the same writers, The Day Today.
- CANAL International, a parody of CNN imagined as a 24-hour news channel set in the Fictional Country Groland, for the needs of a satirical show on French television that lasted from 1994 to 1999. The "CANAL" wordmark was literally spelled "C-A-N-A-L" and pronounced with an American accent so that it sounded like "C-N-N"; the shape of CANAL International's logo also parodied CNN's.
- Casseta & Planeta, a Brazilian group of comedians, had NNN, aimed for the nasal-voiced viewer. It was never stated what the first "N" stands for.
- The Chaser called their fake news network CNNNN (Chaser NoN-stop News Network). The final episode of the first season had a look back at the station's 40-year history: originally, it was CNNN (for Chaser Nonstop News Network), but inexplicably added a fourth N: the extra N is "explained" in an Un-Reveal.
- Dinosaurs has DNN, the Dinosaur News Network.
- Doctor Who:
- "The Dæmons" has an interesting variation when everyone's watching news on BBC 3. It's worth pointing out that at the time it was made BBC 2 had only been around for seven years.
- The relaunch generally uses the BBC for main news and has AMNN for American news during any given News Monopoly.
- Jessica Jones (2015): At the start of season 2, Trish Walker's boyfriend Griffin is a war correspondent at ZCN, who have a CNN graphics package with slightly altered logo.
- Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman has LNN, Luthor News Network.
- The Morning Show is all about — who would have thought? — a morning news/talk show on the fictional UBA network.
- The Onion is the owner of the Onion News Network, or [Onion logo]NN.
- Parodied in the Saturday Night Live crossover parody between Joker (2019) and Sesame Street, where Guy Smiley is the anchor at ABCDEFG News.
- Sesame Street:
- RNN: the R stands for Ridiculous. Accordingly, Monty wonders what he's supposed to do, and Big Bird can't seem to define.
- GNN: the G stands for Grouch, and the network is all dirty. Oscar reports the stories about him before his lover Grundgetta gave him a Phlegmmy Award.
- VNN: the V stands for Vegetable. reported by a Cucumber named Anderson.
- MNN: the M stands for Monster. Elmo is the chief anchor, Cookie Monster as a sound mocking science reporter, Prairie as a special commentator, and a slew of special international correspondents. the motto is where 2 monster mascots cover its globe.
- Sherlock: CAM Global News, owned by season three antagonist Charles Augustus Magnussen.
- Star Trek: Picard has the Federation News Network, or FNN.
Music Videos
- A music video for "Пожалуйста небо" (Please Sky) by Russian singer Anita Tsoy has SNN.
Pinball
- The main display in Dialed In! is presented as a news broadcast from JJP Channel 8.
- Heist!: A billboard can be seen advertising "BNN" (Big News Network).
Professional Wrestling
- In 1991, Paul Neu debuted in WCW as a wrestling rapper named P. N. News. He sometimes shaved a "PNN" logo into his hair, in imitation of the CNN logo; back then, of course, WCW and CNN had the same parent company: Turner Broadcasting.
- When Randy Orton was sidelined with an injury in 2002, WWE kept him on television in humorous weekly vignettes in which he updated fans on his medical condition; these were done under the heading of "Randy News Network" or "RNN".
Radio
- Negativland, in its incarnation as a The Firesign Theatre-esque avant-garde surrealist radio theater group instigated by master culture jammer Don Joyce, had the Universal Media Netweb, often referred to as UMN. All of Joyce's creations including his weekly KPFA show Over the Edge were presented under the aegis of UMN and its mind-breaking or mind-controlling (or mind-liberating) agenda. UMN was founded by C. Elliot Friday, the wealthiest man in the solar sphere, who lives on Howland Island, runs Fridatronics Industries and still (despite Joyce's untimely death) runs for President of the United States every four years on the Universal Party ticket. Casual listeners are probably most familiar with Crosley Bendix, UMN's Director of Stylistic Premonitions and Cultural/Arts Reviewer. He's the one who proposed a fourth primary color, "Squant". UMN's biggest competitor is ABS, the American Broadcasting System, which runs "The Piddle Diddle Report", investigating and criticizing Friday and his empire.
Tabletop Games
- Eclipse Phase makes a mention of the irreverent news review cast MRGCNN, the Monster Raving Goblin Cock News Network.
- Netrunner: One of the playable factions in Android: Netrunner is NBN, which changed what it stands for so often that NBN became its whole name.
- In Shadowrun, CNN itself became NN (NewsNet) when it was re-organized in accordance with Ted Turner's will.
Video Games
- Alpha Protocol shows a TV displaying INN.
- ANNO: Mutationem: A Loading Screen features a reporter doing a news report under WTV announcing pieces of information about on-going events around the world.
- Black Market has the Tricorp News Network, TNN, provide commentary (and exposition) at key moments.
- Crysis: The Kremlin has GNN representing News from American sources. It is never stated in-game what it stands for.
- Desert Strike and its sequel Jungle Strike both feature EANN, Electronic Arts News Network.
- Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain has UNN, Universal News Network, as what seems to be the sole surviving news broadcaster after an alien invasion wrecked the Earth. The broadcasts serve as a sort of Greek Chorus giving a view of the player character's squad's actions in the larger war, albeit with a strong dose of cheerleading and propaganda.
- Elite Dangerous has GalNet, which doesn't have an abbreviated form but serves as the game's primary source of exposition for many events that happen in the Galaxy that players can actively influence (unless it's detailing the clout surrounding the president of The Federation or The Empire's succession crisis).
- Escape Velocity Nova has the Hyper News Network (the Federation's news service). Interestingly, it is actually the only news service shown in the game whose acronym ends in "N" despite every one being built on a three-word structure with three-letter acronyms shown — there's two News Services, two News Corps, two Info Commands, one Info Service and one Intel Corps. The two earlier games had their newsnote fit the basic model of the trope, though with the acronyms not quite being what one would think from looking at the full names — Classic has the Interstellar News Network using the acronym ISN, while Override had the United Earth News Network with the acronym UEN.
- The Fallout universe has a Galaxy News Network (GNN). Although "Galaxy News Network" appears in the first Fallout game, the acronym "GNN" doesn't appear with any prominence (other than a single note in Fallout 2) in-universe until Fallout 4, where it is featured on banners and billboards.
- Hitman (2016) also has GNN, with a logo blatantly satirising real-life American news channel CNN.
- The Horde has the Franzpowanki News Network (FNN), which broadcasts on Crystal Ball.
- The Master of Orion games have the GNN (Galactic News Network) reporting some random events and statistics. The anchor is, naturally, a robot.note
- The Mega Man Battle Network series has DNN.
- Metal Wolf Chaos has DNN.
- Pokémon Diamond and Pearl has Sinnoh News Net, which, while not abbreviated in the game, does make SNN if you do abbreviate it.
- In the world of dragons in Spyro the Dragon (1998) there is DNN (Dragon News Network).
- StarCraft and especially StarCraft II have UNN (Universal News Network) as the primary news source for Terran civilization, and the propaganda outlet for whatever government currently controls it. The network plays a large role in some stories set in the Expanded Universe as well.
- In all the Star Shift Series games, the story will occasionally cut to a news network pumping out news pieces in favor of their own side.
- In Origins, Carol Everson and Magnus Archer can enter the Novus Broadcasting Network building (NBN), which does their best to make Novus Federation sound like the heroes fighting the evil ESA. There's also an opportunity to slightly increase Novus reputation by watching and complimenting a documentary one of the employees made. Unfortunately, Novus Federation is secretly run by ESA spies and is effectively controlled opposition.
- In Rebellion, the ORC will watch the Interstellar News Network (INN), which is pro-Earth Systems Alliance and paints any opposition as terrorism.
- The Canite Broadcasting Network (CBN) is comparatively more neutral compared to the NBN and INN, though they do mainly repeat statements made by other major powers and whoever is currently in charge of Canis Prime. The main anchor, Skip Cooper, is implied to be skeptical of Canites' Alpha, Commodus, since he repeats Commodus's claims with quotation marks in his dialogue text.
- Once the Outer Rim Coalition drive the ESA out of Infernis Prime, their own broadcasting network, Outer Rim Broadcasting (ORB), starts televising their victory. Unlike most examples, the anchor, Sisko Hyperion is not only a soldier, he also operates with a fake name and from an undisclosed location to avoid getting targeted by the ESA.
- The camera in Super Mario 64 is operated by Lakitu, who is an employee of KNN — Kingdom News Network.
- Touhou Project fandom knows CNN as "Cirno News Network", thanks to some pretty bad Cowboy BeBop at His Computer.
- Vega Strike has procedurally generated News from GNN readable on base computers, mostly concerning space fights between factions, with occasional mentions of Privateers' help, that is completed Player Character missions.
Webcomics
- Gone To Ground has DNN (Da Nooz Network).
- Jerkcity has JNN (Jerkcity News Network).
- Schlock Mercenary has the HyperNet News Network, or HN3.
- The webcomic (and later graphic novel) Shooting War has GNN: Global News Network.
Web Originals
- This game review gives us ACNN during a parody news cast. We're never told what it stands for, though...
- Anime News Network (ANN) was named after this trope.
- Diamanda Hagan: Hagan noted that the no-budget Caught Up in the Rapture movie Apocalypse has a WNN, which is entirely unlike GNN from the much more famous Left Behind (2000) movie. (To be fair, Apocalypse predates the Left Behind movie, while the book didn't feature GNN.) The review is then interupted by one of Hagan's minions with an HNN special report about the skirmishes being fought over the few remaining available letters.
- The Escapist has ENN.
- FreedomToons: The MSNBS network, which hosts the incredibly biased show The Echo Chamber.
- If a GoAnimate video features a TV news report, it'll probably be on GNN.
- Sonic Wiki Zone, the Sonic the Hedgehog Fandom wiki, used to be named "Sonic News Network" from 2005 to 2023.
- Star Wars Uncut: ENN the "Empire News Network" brings you Talking Heads discussing the Imperial Senate being dissolved.
Western Animation
- The All Dogs Go to Heaven Christmas Special has CCN.
- Bob's Burgers has the student-run news program at the kids' school, WSN (Wagstaff School News).
- The Cleveland Show: The episode "Terry Unmarried" has an inversion. After Cleveland figures out that Terry's bisexual, he freaks out, and his babbling becomes scrolling details with a headline. At the bottom left, you see CNN and directly under it, you see Cleveland News Network.
- Futurama: "The Deep South" reveals that Atlanta's bigshots would eventually move the town into the ocean. CNN was then renamed SeaNN.
- Parodied in Inside Job (2021) — one of the two political news networks Cognito runs is called MSCNNBCNBBC.
- Liberty's Kids has LNN, the brief game-like segments shown when it was initially aired on PBS Kids.
- The Magic School Bus has FNN.
- Milo Murphy's Law has DNN.
- Vampirina has Transylvania News Network.
- The VeggieTales episode "Sumo of the Opera" is Japan-themed, and has ESN (Emperor's Sports Network), a cross between CNN and ESPN.
Real Life
- Besides CNN there are a lot of small channels that use the news network nomenclature, such as Ohio-based Ohio News Network.
- Far-right news channel One America News Network uses this naming scheme.
- All the major commercial Japanese network television news divisions use these:
- All-Nippon News Network (TV Asahi)
- Fuji News Network (Fuji Television)
- Japan News Network (Tokyo Broadcasting System)
- Nippon News Network (Nippon Television)
