CNN closing finance channel

CNN will shut down its struggling CNNfn financial news network in mid-December, giving up its attempt to compete with CNBC after nine years.

CNNfn is available in only about 30 million of the nation’s 110 million television homes. With the coming expiration of its deal with the DirecTV satellite system, it faced the prospect of losing more distribution.

It began in December 1995 when business, and business news, were hot. CNBC’s ratings plunged when the Internet bubble burst on Wall Street, and CNNfn also failed to gain footing. Management turmoil didn’t help: CNNfn’s biggest star, Lou Dobbs, left in 1999 and then returned in 2001.

Dobbs will continue his program on the main network, as will the real estate series “Open House” and “Dolans Unscripted,” a talk show with personal finance experts Ken and Daria Dolan.

Sixty jobs will be eliminated, but CNN said it would add about 100 new jobs across the company, many related to its plans to alter its Headline News channel, offering prime-time programming instead of a constantly repeating 30-minute newscast.