CNA (TV network)

CNA (formerly Channel NewsAsia) is a Singapore-based multinational news channel owned by Mediacorp, the country's state-owned media conglomerate. The network is broadcast in Singapore on free-to-air terrestrial television and Mediacorp's streaming service meWatch, and is distributed internationally via television providers in the Asia–Pacific, as well as streaming and free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) platforms.

The network has been positioned as an alternative to Western-based international media in presenting news from "an Asian perspective." Alongside its main focus as an English-language news television channel, CNA also produces news and current affairs content in Singapore's other official languages of Chinese, Malay, and Tamil, which is distributed via digital outlets and Mediacorp's local channels in the languages. Mediacorp's Channel 5 previously aired a simulcast of CNA during the weekday breakfast hours until 1 May 2019, when it was replaced by an Okto block.

The CNA brand also encompasses digital media properties, including its website and social media outlets, as well as a co-branded news radio station in Singapore, CNA938.

The idea of a news channel had been first suggested by Woon Tai Ho, who would soon become CNA's first vice-president.

Despite the economic recession the region was facing at the time, Mediacorp, then known as Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS) was suggesting the creation of a news channel (initially rumoured to be a business channel) in 1998. Under the initially planned format, the channel was set to provide business news mirroring CNN and CNBC, with a tentative launch date of 1 January 1999.

In October, TCS announced the name of the new service, Channel NewsAsia, and that its cost would be of $20 million in the first year, and $100 million at the long-term period of five years. With the then-upcoming launch of the channel, it was decided that all of Channel 5's current affairs programmes were to move to CNA, leaving only the main news (News 5 Tonight) with only one edition at 9:30pm.

In a surprise move, one of its initial presenters, Christine Tan, left CNA ahead of its launch for CNBC Asia. Two further presenters had left CNA despite heavy promotion for its launch. The launch of the channel was still set to go as planned, but still aired promos featuring the resigned presenters during its test transmissions. The channel's initial slogan was "We know Asia".

Channel NewsAsia launched on 1 March 1999, opening with a speech by Minister of Information and the Arts George Yeo at Raffles Place. Attending the ceremony were CNA staff, TCS executives and representatives from both media and business circles. Malaysia reacted to the channel's launch with a Malaysian answer owned by Astro. A few months after launch, in July 1999, jurisdiction of CNA was moved from TCS to the newly created MediaCorp News, in line with the renaming of SIM to Media Corporation of Singapore and the creation of "strategic business units".