As it be­gan its jour­ney on this day 20 years ago in a me­dia land­scape dom­i­nat­ed by es­tab­lished play­ers, from its first broad­cast, CNC3 was des­tined to re­de­fine the in­dus­try.

CNC3 was born from the strate­gic fore­sight of Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed (GML) un­der the lead­er­ship of then-Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, the late Gren­fell Kissoon, with Rose­marie Sant as the first Head of News.

The mis­sion was clear: to launch a news chan­nel of­fer­ing a dy­nam­ic and mod­ern al­ter­na­tive in the lo­cal mar­ket. The name it­self, “Ca­ble News Chan­nel 3,” re­flect­ed its ini­tial plat­form - ac­ces­si­ble on­ly via ca­ble sub­scrip­tions.

The launch date, Sep­tem­ber 26, 2005, came two days lat­er than orig­i­nal­ly planned. CNC3 was set to be­gin broad­cast­ing on Re­pub­lic Day, Sep­tem­ber 24, but a last-minute doc­u­men­ta­tion con­cern with the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go caused a brief de­lay.

The mat­ter was re­solved by Sep­tem­ber 25, but Kissoon, in the in­ter­est of cau­tion, post­poned the first broad­cast by a day.

On the evening of Sep­tem­ber 26, CNC3 went live, in­tro­duc­ing au­di­ences to crisp, pro­fes­sion­al news de­liv­ery with dig­i­tal­ly im­posed back­grounds. The in­au­gur­al an­chor team: Car­la Foder­ing­ham, Shelly Dass, Roger Sant, and Er­ic Mack­ie on week­days, and Francesca Hawkins on week­ends - set high stan­dards for cred­i­bil­i­ty and jour­nal­is­tic in­tegri­ty.

Ear­ly pro­grammes in­clud­ed The Morn­ing Show (ini­tial­ly host­ed by Dr Kei­th Clif­ford), Y2G (Youth for Two Hours with Giselle) host­ed by Giselle Legall, The Big Sto­ry with Shelly Dass and The Jaye-Q Show (host­ed by Jaye-Q Bap­tiste).

The Morn­ing Show evolved in­to to­day’s The Morn­ing Brew, host­ed over the years by Clif­ford, Pao­lo Ker­na­han, the very pop­u­lar Hema Ramkissoon, and now Ja­son Williams, blend­ing in­ter­views, po­lit­i­cal analy­ses, and lifestyle fea­tures.

While the ca­ble launch was suc­cess­ful, CNC3’s lead­er­ship had big­ger am­bi­tions. To serve the en­tire na­tion, the sta­tion tran­si­tioned to free-to-air broad­cast­ing on No­vem­ber 1, 2008 - a fun­da­men­tal rein­ven­tion. The name was short­ened to the sleek, pow­er­ful “CNC3,” mark­ing its en­try in­to the main­stream and the start of rapid mar­ket growth.

On-air tal­ent ex­pand­ed, in­tro­duc­ing house­hold names like Shelly Dass, Samp­son Nan­ton and Satesh Ma­habir in the ear­ly stages, fol­lowed by Khamal Georges, Gol­da Lee-Bruce, Ria Ram­bal­ly and Seigo­nie Mo­hammed.

Long-stand­ing jour­nal­ists like Gyasi Mer­rique, Ot­to Car­ring­ton, Ryan Ba­choo, Jan­nelle Bernard and Carisa Lee con­tin­ue to grow with the com­pa­ny, as oth­ers like Faine Richards, Akash Sama­roo, Ke­jan Haynes, Kay-Marie Fletch­er, Bavi­ta Gopaulchan, Jesse Ramdeo and Da­reece Po­lo joined the ranks.

Oth­er valu­able mem­bers in the last two decades in­clude Ode­ka O’Neil, Char­lene Ramd­hanie, Robert Du­mas, and Kalain Ho­sein, all help­ing to ce­ment the sta­tion’s con­nec­tion with view­ers.

CNC3’s rep­u­ta­tion grew through cov­er­age of na­tion­al elec­tions, states of emer­gency, and land­mark crim­i­nal cas­es like Dana See­ta­hal’s mur­der. The sta­tion se­cured pre­mier sports rights, in­clud­ing the CPL T20, FI­FA World Cup, Olympics, and Eng­lish Pre­mier League.

Sports an­chors and jour­nal­ists - Roger Sant, Astil Renn, Cas­ton Cu­pid, Jo­van Rav­el­lo, Du­mas and Mer­rique - have brought these sto­ries to life with in­sight and pas­sion.

The sta­tion al­so built a for­mi­da­ble dig­i­tal pres­ence, with so­cial me­dia plat­forms lead­ing com­peti­tors by hun­dreds of thou­sands of fol­low­ers, fur­ther so­lid­i­fy­ing its po­si­tion in an evolv­ing me­dia land­scape.

The last decade saw a fo­cus on lega­cy shows that en­ter­tain, ed­u­cate, and in­spire. The Pitch (2015) cel­e­brat­ed CPL vic­to­ries, while Roamin’ in Rio and Quest 2 Qatar brought view­ers be­hind the scenes of glob­al sport­ing events.

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, CNC3 bal­anced in­ves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism (On Pa­trol) with lighter en­ter­tain­ment (What Tong Say and Lie Lie Lie). Pro­grammes like Spell­bound reignit­ed in­ter­est in lit­er­a­cy, Make Your Point fos­tered de­bate among youth, Wild TT high­light­ed nat­ur­al her­itage, and Man­hood cre­at­ed a vi­tal plat­form for men to dis­cuss health and so­ci­etal is­sues.

From its sym­bol­ic be­gin­nings to its cur­rent sta­tus as a me­dia ti­tan, CNC3’s 20-year jour­ney is a tes­ta­ment to vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship, ded­i­cat­ed staff, from pro­duc­ers and cam­era op­er­a­tors to ed­i­tors and on-air tal­ent - and its pro­found con­nec­tion with the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. CNC3 stands not just as a broad­cast­er, but as a chron­i­cler of the na­tion’s sto­ry, ready to nar­rate the chap­ters yet to come.