CNN's financial news channel, CNNfn, signed off after an hour long finale on Wednesday afternoon.

"Sad doesn't even begin to describe how we feel about it," said CNN/Money's managing editor Allen Wastler today.

The channel is currently simulcasting CNN International programming before closing down entirely at 23:59:59 on Wednesday night. It appears that American viewers will no longer have access to CNN International via service providers that carried CNNfn.

Some programmes from CNNfn will move to the main CNN/US channel and also CNN Headline News.

In October, CNN News Group chief Jim Walton said that the decision to shut down the nine-year-old channel had been taken because CNN "came to the conclusion that we would have more potential for growth going in a different way."