Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- CNN, Time Warner Inc.'s global cable- television news channel, will stop using Reuters Group Plc's news service starting tomorrow, according to an internal e-mail.
``We are making significant investments in our own newsgathering while simultaneously reducing our reliance on agency material,'' according to the e-mail sent to employees by Atlanta-based CNN International's Managing Director Tony Maddox today. Ranjita Menon, a CNN spokeswoman in Hong Kong, confirmed the contents of the e-mail.
CNN, which offers international news channels in competition against broadcasters including British Broadcasting Corp., needs to manage ``continually rising costs'' of outside content, Maddox said. CNN International will continue to use material from the Associated Press, Menon wrote in a separate e-mail. She declined to comment on how much the Reuters service costs.
The effort will mean ``changes to some longstanding business relationships,'' Maddox said in the note to employees.
``This move is a major multimillion dollar investment in our newsgathering and editorial operations across CNN and is all about content ownership and investing in our future,'' he said in a separate statement today. ``To characterize it as a cost- cutting exercise is totally false.''
London-based Reuters said last month that price increases from the start of this year helped the company's first-half profit rise 19 percent to 114 million pounds ($229.2 million).
Toronto-based financial information company Thomson Corp. said in May that it is buying Reuters for 8.7 billion pounds.
Bloomberg LP, parent of Bloomberg News, competes with Reuters and Thomson in selling information and trading systems to the financial-services industry.
