Today, at 21 years old, the Atlanta network is losing marketshare to smaller rivals with colourful new shows and strong on-air personalities. As a result, its marketing executives are seeking to recast CNN's identity as a multimedia brand.

Last week, CNN, a unit of Dulles, Va.'s AOL Time Warner, reached out to the advertising world. It asked a number of agencies - WPP Group's Young & Rubicam; Omnicom Group's GSD&M and Merkley Newman Harty; Bcom3 Group's Leo Burnett; and Interpublic Group's Deutsch, among others - to submit samples of work. The inquiry is the first step in what ultimately could be a $15 million to $20 million ad campaign for CNN.

Ms Wonya Lucas, senior vice-president of strategic marketing for domestic networks at the CNN News Group, says CNN is grappling with "the evolution of a TV brand." Though she hasn't picked a new agency, she says she is rolling up her sleeves to re-examine CNN advertising to date to determine what direction to take from here.

"The toughest challenge that they face is that because they're fairly old and well established, there is a fixed idea in people's minds about what they are and what they carry," says Mr John Lister, chairman of Lister Butler Consulting, a closely held New York brand-identity consultancy.

CNN's shift from cable-TV network to multimedia brand is also a complex message to deliver, Mr Butler says. "Working out some kind of singular corporate message about the brand that is both compelling and explanatory at the same time is the biggest challenge," he says. "Simply wrapping advertising cosmetics around it won't do the job."

CNN lately has had enough bad news to fill an entire 24-hour news channel for a week. It announced in January that it would lay off about 400 employees, or 10 per cent of its work force, in a consolidation of the network's sprawling TV and Internet groups into a single organisation. In a recent interview, CNN Chairman Mr Tom Johnson blamed part of the network's audience erosion on lack of marketing.

Viewers are defecting to news channels with feistier on-air talent. Rivals include News Corp.'s Fox News Channel (home to "The Edge With Paula Zahn" and "The O'Reilly Factor," starring the acerbic Bill O'Reilly); MSNBC, a joint venture of General Electric's NBC and Microsoft (with rising star Brian Williams and the loquacious Chris Matthews); and CNBC, the business news channel (with the "Squawk Box" morning crew and Sue Herera and Ron Insana of "Business Center"). Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal and WSJ.com, is co-owner with General Electric of the CNBC television operations in Asia and Europe; Dow Jones also provides news content to CNBC.As a result of the lively competition, CNN's dominance has slipped slightly.

Of the average 10.6 million households watching news programmes on any given day during 2000, 3.2 per cent watched CNN. In 1996, 3.5 per cent of the estimated average 9.3 million daily news-watching households tuned in to the network, according to CNN.

The marketing battle is already intense. CNN spent $12.4 million during 1998 and $15.7 million during 1999 on advertising - more than twice as much as was spent by rivals CNBC and MSNBC, according to CMR, a New York research firm owned by Taylor Nelson Sofres. But the other guys are spending fast, too. During the first 10 months of 2000, CNBC shelled out a total of $20.6 million to promote CNBC and CNBC.com.

CNN's advertising approach has varied. In early 1999, it hired Interpublic Group's Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos to create ads with New York Yankees pitcher Mr Roger Clemens, Amazon.com founder Mr Jeff Bezos, and Mr Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Airlines. The ads carried the tagline: "You are what you know."

CNN pulled the campaign before most of the ads appeared. Mr Mark Harrad, the spokesman for CNN's parent Turner Broadcasting, says senior management "very much liked the concept" but felt "the actual creative execution didn't live up to the concept."

In late 1999, CNN launched a new campaign, to promote its prime-time TV lineup. Ads featuring the talk-show host Larry King and the anchor Wolf Blitzer ran in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. They were from Omnicom's Moss/Dragoti.

But as the Internet rose to prominence, CNN decided it should represent more than just TV news. It hired Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/ Euro RSCG, a unit of Havas Advertising's Euro RSCG Worldwide, in March to do research for CNN and the fledgling CNN.com. Thus far, that research hasn't evolved into a campaign.

Following recent changes in its corporate structure, CNN is going back to the drawing board - again. Says CNN's Ms Lucas: "We are in a transition period and we are looking forward to moving the brand to the next level."

The Wall Street Journal