CNN
Abbreviation with 2 meanings
| Stands for | Cable News Network |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 2 |
| Categories | Organizations & Companies, Technology & Computing |
CNN has two meanings. It stands for Cable News Network (media and broadcasting) or Convolutional neural network (artificial intelligence).
Meanings of CNN at a glance
| # | CNN stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cable News Network | Organizations & Companies › Media and Broadcasting |
| 2 | Convolutional neural network | Technology & Computing › Artificial Intelligence |
1. Cable News Network
Organizations & Companies · Media and Broadcasting Abbreviations
American cable news channel and news website, the first television channel to provide 24-hour news coverage in the United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, with major bureaus in New York and Washington.
Example: CNN's live coverage of election night drew its biggest audience in years.
Founded by Ted Turner and launched on June 1, 1980. Its live reports from Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War made it a global brand and gave rise to the phrase "the CNN effect". Owned over the years by Turner Broadcasting, Time Warner and AT&T's WarnerMedia, it came under Warner Bros. Discovery in 2022.
2. Convolutional neural network
Technology & Computing · Artificial Intelligence Abbreviations
A neural network that slides small learned filters across an image to detect patterns such as edges, textures and shapes, building up to whole objects. CNNs dominated image classification, object detection and medical imaging through the 2010s.
Example: The CNN flags suspicious regions on each X-ray for the radiologist to review.
Yann LeCun's LeNet read handwritten digits on bank checks in the late 1980s and 1990s, and AlexNet's 2012 ImageNet victory launched the deep learning boom. Later architectures include VGG, ResNet and EfficientNet, and vision transformers now compete with them. In news, CNN is the Cable News Network, by far the more familiar meaning.
Related abbreviations
More media and broadcasting abbreviations
- CBS – Columbia Broadcasting System
- CCTV – China Central Television
- CMT – Country Music Television
- CNBC – Consumer News and Business Channel
- CTV – CTV Television Network
- CW – The CW Television Network
- DPA – Deutsche Presse-Agentur
- DW – Deutsche Welle
See all 53 media and broadcasting abbreviations →