On the most recent episode of KCRW’s TV-centric podcast, “The Spin Off,” host Michael Schneider wondered if CNN was still even a news network. His rumination stemmed from the network’s evolving programming model, which has come to favor nearly nonstop coverage of whatever disaster is currently trending, interspersed with occasional original programming such as “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.”

While a report on, say, the ongoing search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 certainly qualifies as news, it stops feeling as such, Schneider argued, when that report continues around the clock, offering no fresh information or insights for hours or days at a time. Of course, CNN is hardly alone in this pursuit, as Fox News, MSNBC and other news networks tend to get equally fixated on whatever topic-of-the-moment gets the highest ratings. Their collective cynical usage of repetition and rhetoric to grab ratings has helped turn the very notion of the 24-hour news cycle into an object of criticism, and even ridicule.

If anything was ever in need of a brand refresh, it’s the 24-hour news cycle – and with its new digital offering, CNNx, CNN has tried to give it one.

This update to CNNs iPad app (it’s also bound for set-top boxes and CNN.com) is the answer for viewers who, rather than watching many consecutive hours of Flight 370 coverage, prefer to consume a variety of news stories. It lets users cycle through all CNN story segments from the past 24 hours, and choose which ones they’d like to watch. The interface allows smooth access to a rundown of recent programming, and the ability to preview or scroll back through desired segments. Meanwhile, related digital content gets automatically curated in real time – presenting supplemental articles, images, social commentary and more.

“As the Internet has come crashing into the television, we’ve future-proofed CNN,” said KC Estenson, SVP and GM of CNN Digital, in a statement. “This product bolsters our relationships with TV partners, opens incredible new opportunities for advertisers and delivers consumers a truly innovative experience… CNN has again redefined the way people consume news.”

Estenson’s bold words may not be the stuff of hyperbole. Viewers expect to control every aspect of their watching experience nowadays, and in converting its segments to VOD, CNN has made even the 24-hour news cycle controllable. It turns out CNN is still very much a news network – it’s just that our notion of what a news network should do for us has changed.

“CNNx… allows the consumer to be the producer,” CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker told Adweek recently. “It allows the consumer to be able to enhance what they are watching and decide when they want to watch it.”

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