MUMBAI: The dominance of CNBC in the US business and financial news landscape has claimed a victim.

CNN has announced that it will close its financial and business news channel CNNfn by the middle of December.

The financial news network, launched in 1995, competed for viewers as US interest in the financial markets surged. However it failed to get enough distribution on the US' largest cable operators.

CNNfn is distributed in about 30 million of the 100 million US homes. CNBC meanwhile is available in about 86 million US homes and 200 million worldwide.

CNNfn's deal with DirecTV was set to expire shortly. If the deal was not renewed then it faced the prospect of losing nearly half of its distribution. News Corp which took a stake in DirecTV last year is thinking in terms of starting its own financial news network.

In a letter adressed to employees CNN US news group president Jim Walton stated, "Exponential growth in the television marketplace since CNNfn's 1995 launch has made it challenging to grow distribution for many niche networks in today's highly competitive landscape.

"Our eventual plan is to evolve our business and financial news coverage on a platform where we can benefit from early-mover status "

About 50 of CNNfn's 110 employees will remain at the company. About 60 employees will be offered an opportunity to reapply for other jobs within the CNN news group. Executives said that about 100 news jobs will be posted at the CNN group.