A CNN Staple Taken Down After 37 Years

The CNN move is officially solidified. FOX News Atlanta reports the network’s three red letters and logo that stood outside the media company’s headquarters in Downtown Atlanta are now gone. They’ve been housed outside of the CNN Center since 1987. The move comes after the cable channel announced that the company would move out of the giant complex into the Techwood Turner Broadcasting campus in Midtown last year. The channel’s weekday anchors are all already in New York or Washington. The company still has digital and CNN International operations in Atlanta. 

A Turner spokesperson told AdWeek that the sign would undergo a few weeks of refurbishment. It will be reinstalled at the Midtown campus at a later date. CNN’s previous parent company, AT&T, sold the CNN Center for nearly $164 million to two Florida-based real estate firms, CP Group and Rialto Capital, in 2021. How long the Downtown building will continue to call itself the CNN Center is unknown.

The company has been in the news a lot as of late as major changes have been underway in the past two years, most famously the firing of longtime anchor, Don Lemon. Lemon was ousted after reports of issues behind the scenes. 

PEOPLE Magazine reports Lemon was paid $24.4 million in a settlement judgement, the same amount he would’ve earned had he completed his contract. He’d previously stated he was shocked by the firing.

He announced his firing from the network in an X (formerly known as Twitter) post in April 2023 after 17 years. “I was informed this morning by my agent I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned,” Lemon wrote. CNN execs say Lemon was aware of issues. 

“Don Lemon’s statement about this morning’s events is inaccurate,” CNN Communications tweeted in response. “He was offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter.”