CNN intern releases video that Ted Turner 'wanted to be run during apocalypse'

• Clip is a version of military band playing hymn 'Nearer my God to three'
• The minute-long segment is believed to be stored on an archive system
• File is believed to be attached with bold red letters saying 'HFR (hold for release) till the end of the world [is] confirmed
• Ted Turner said channel would broadcast until the end of the world when it was founded 34 years ago

By Wills Robinson For Dailymail.com

Published: 17:22 EST, 5 January 2015 | Updated: 19:11 EST, 5 January 2015

When CNN launched 34 years ago, founder Ted Turner vowed that the station would broadcast the news 24 hours a day until the end of the world.

Therefore, anticipating that at one point the apocalypse would come, he is believed to have created a segment that would be shown as the cable channel signed off for the final time.

The clip that would supposedly be played to the last people watching the station is a minute-long version of the 19th century hymn 'Nearer my God to thee' performed by the Armed Forces marching bands.

According to Jalopnik, it is stored on CNN's MIRA archive and was initially edited to fit on cathode -ray TVs popular in the 1980s.

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The video that CNN will purportedly play at the end of the world is a minute-long version of the 19th century hymn 'Nearer my God to thee' being played by an Armed Forces marching band

It is believed to be stored on CNN's MIRA archive and was initially edited to fit on cathode -ray TVs popular in the 1980s

The file is believed to be kept alongside bold red letters which read: 'HFR (hold for release' till end of the world confirmed.'

Michael Ballaban, who was an intern in 2009 for Wolf Blizter's program Situation Room, said he was first told about the video by a college professor who had worked at CNN for 20 years.

According to an article he wrote for Jalopnik, he said the clip turned up on a database when he searched for 'Turner Doomsday Video'.

He has since managed to get hold of the footage and has posted it online.

Rumors of the doomsday tape's existence have been reported many times over the last 25 years.

In 1988, it was included in an article published in the New Yorker, and as late as 2001, in the New York Daily News.

He told the New Yorker: Normally, when a TV station begins & ends the broacast day, it signs on & off by playing the National Anthem.

'But with CNN - a 24-hour-a day channel - we would only sign off once and I knew what that would mean. So we got the combined Armed Forces marching bands together –the Army, Navy, Marine & Air Force bands–& took them out to the old CNN headquarters & we had them practice the National Anthem for a videotaping.

'Then, as things cranked up, I asked if they'd play "Nearer My God, to Thee" to put on videotape just in case the world ever came to an end. That would be the last thing CNN played before we–before we signed off.

'I can't watch this without getting tears in my eyes.

'I keep this tape around because when the world ends it'll be over before we can say what we wanted to say. Before we can leave any final messages.'

DailyMail.com have contacted CNN for comment.

Born as part of Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System, in 1996 it became a part of Time Warner.

In 2000 America Online bought Time Warner for $164 billion, and in 2006 Ted Turner himself left the Time Warner board.

In 2009, AOL was spun off from the company it once attempted to dominate.

An intern said that he got hold of the video when he searched for it on a database. It is believed to be behind red letters saying:

The site's founder Ted Turner said the channel would keep broadcasting until the world ended when it was founded in 1974