It's actually rather mind-blowing that so much money was invested in such a system. How does that possibly make sense? According to this service [0], CNN has an annual revenue of $190m.
Is this some kind of money funneling scheme or an exec's pet project? How do these execs remain so rich after wasting massive amounts of money on projects that seem doomed to fail right from the start? Seeing this makes me wish you could somehow directly short projects of this nature from large companies.
This got caught up in the Warner Media merger and CNN's executive leaving the company. Warner Media wants CNN to focus on hard journalism, and the CNN+ content of soft shows doesn't really fit with that. Plus, CNN+ never included the CNN cable channel since it would put at risk their main cash cow: distribution agreements to carry CNN. Warner Media wants to have HBO Max to be their big all encompassing streaming service, so I doubt they see a need for a separate CNN+ service anymore. The timing is interesting though, since was launched right before the merger closed. I wonder if the CNN folks just wanted to get this out the door before the new leadership took over. I do give credit to Warner Media execs for killing this early as soon as they decided on long term plans for the combined company.
I was looking forward to CNN+. I wanted an ad-free way to consume the daily news and mindlessly listen to pundits. I think if it was just Anderson Cooper doing this for 20-30 minutes it would've been totally worth the $3/month for people like me.
Instead what they delivered was the crap, low effort documentaries they put on to fill gaps in their airtime. Reruns of Anthony Bourdain, weak medical information from Sanjay Gupta, and more social justice than you can shake a stick at.
How on earth did they waste $300m on this? Anderson Cooper 360 with no ads is all they needed.
> Anderson Cooper 360 with no ads is all they needed.
That would be a good way to get a little money from streaming and lose a lot of money from cable distribution, not a net win. There's a reason none of the news networks whose owners have streaming services do that with their big-draw cable news programs.
A joint venture with Fox News where every 15min they switch between liberal and conservative pundits would have been interesting. Imagine the drama when folks get up for a drink, come back, and sit down to somebody saying the polar opposite of what the person before had been saying. I'd pay to watch people watch that, just to see their heads explode.
It would be funny, but I think this "one foot in a bucket of ice, the other in a bucket of lava" approach to neutrality is part of why political reporting has become so incredibly polarizing. It leads to increasingly extreme outliers being given a platform when they probably would have just been ignored before.
This made me laugh out loud. Thanks for that. Perhaps Mike Judge could produce it? Something in the article seems to support just how fungible the CNN and Fox cable news-tainment duopoly is. They increasingly appear to be just two sides of the same news-tainment coin:
>"CNN wooed big-name talent, including Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, to join the service."
In a NYTimes profile from last year Chis Wallace stated:
>"I just no longer felt comfortable with the programming at Fox."[1].
It's worth noting that he was at Fox for 18 years. It's amusing to think that his move to the CNN streaming service just happened to coincide with his breaking point after almost two decades. I believe CNN also made an offer to Megan Fox after she exited Fox News.
My impression of CNN the last few years was that they seemed to be they spending an inordinate amount of time talking about whatever outrageous thing a Fox host just said on air. It's all rather dystopian and meta. The article hints that Discovery would like them to focus on hard-jouralism but I can't recall the last time CNN was hard-journalism. The Ted Turner years, the first Gulf war?
Hannity and Colmes was -supposed- to be that, and it was at times interesting.
It was rather obvious though who the star of the show was supposed to be, and Colmes was rather moderate. The conspiracy theorist in me says they probably handpicked Colmes for that role because he was a rather unattractive guy, and anything Fox can do to make liberals look bad goes.
The entire purpose of opinion news is for people to be fed back their own opinions. Every time someone’s opinion is challenged by “their side” they find another outlet.
I regularly read 'Real Clear Politics' for just this reason. To see what the zealots on either side of the aisle are saying, and to try to triangulate some sort of truth.
I give them credit for trying and failing quickly.
I personally don't see how it was ever going to work, but it's not my business and I don't know what I'm talking about. They clearly thought they had a chance, tried it, saw it flop, and are willing to quickly admit the mistake and stop the bleeding. You can't succeed if you're not willing to fail.
I am torn between "I give them credit for trying and failing quickly" and "How on earth did user/market research not show them this would be the result?" I.e. I would love to know if the latter had been optimistic and disproven by the reality.
> I give them credit for trying and failing quickly.
What ever happened to 'pivoting' rather than giving up and throwing in the towel?
I don't think any investors would be happy with projects just giving up and losing their money like what had happened to Quibi. The difference is, that the raised money for Quibi was returned back and CNN+ lost. it. all.
Totally giving up even after what happened to Quibi is inexcusable for CNN. It means that they have not learned anything and have admitted to repeating the same mistakes they did and lost more money and shut down quicker than Quibi.
Now they are part of list of the worst launch failures in history. Oh dear.
Good riddance. CNN has declined precipitously in general quality, in the last couple of years, and CNN+ was really only a "Get your pure and refined poo, here."
Def not worth it.
BTW: This has nothing to do with perceived (or actual) political bent. I just feel like they threw all pretense of restraint to the wind, and I couldn't trust them; even a little bit.
If there was a news bundle app: CNN, Fox, MSNBC, CNBC, Bloomberg, etc. I think that would do fairly well in the long run. I know it would send me over the edge and make me feel better about getting rid of cable.
I think almost no one with cable is looking for more talking heads. Since the back catalog has a value of effectively zero their main audience has to be cord cutters. I do think that would work for CNN+ eventually but it would probably take years to get to scale.
In general though: Single network news subscriptions like this encourage behavior that is a net negative for society. Right now it's hard enough to convince people to change the channel and step out of their bubble to form their own opinions. The last thing society needs is for everyone to only have access to one news channel. Especially one where the viewer is a direct customer as it's only going to encourage these stations to give the viewers more and more of the opinions they already agree with. This will just make people even more opinionated which then drives our politicians to continue down this path of zero compromise and zero legislative productivity.
That’s not going to happen. They’re all competing entities with different corporate ownerships.
I’ve done some work with a few NBCUniversal brands (Syfy, Bravo, E) and while they’ve gotten more aligned in recent years the individual brands are still competing with each other for eyeballs and these are folks that are under a single corporate umbrella and mostly in the same building (30 Rock).
In theory you could create a YouTube TV for news, or sports only those efforts are non starters. If a provider wants MSNBC they have to negotiate for a whole package of NBCU brands.
My understanding is the old guard launched as the new guard (Discovery-Warner: http://cnn.com/2022/04/08/media/discovery-warner-media-merge...) was taking over. Probably should have waited to see how the new management wanted to play it, but likely the new team didn't have much say before everything closed. If I was to guess they are pulling it now because the numbers are terrible, but more importantly it needs to be rethought to fit into an HBO Max + Discovery + CNN mega service.
Exactly this. Everyone here is acting as though CNN+ was a failure as a product, when the real issue is that, in the context of the Warner Media Discovery entity, the new management no longer feels that product is aligned with their corporate strategy.
I think we can expect a lot more of this kind of trimming as the combined organization continues to remove redundant services and programming, etc.
I'm sorry, this is a dumb comment.... but every time I hear "plus" after a streaming service (CNN+, Disney+, Paramount+, etc...) - all I can think of is "Grape Juice Plus"
Edit: Wow, didn't expect the down votes, but okay. Grape Juice Plus is a reference to Planet of the Apes - specifically, the 3rd movie in the sequence - the 1971 movie "Escape from the Planet of the Apes". When Zira tries wine for the first time and asks "what is this?", instead of saying "wine", they say "that's, uh, grape juice plus". For whatever silly reason, that scene always stuck with me.
The first I heard of CNN+ was in the context of how badly it was failing. I'm pretty immersed in the internet and our household collectively has 3 or so streaming services.
It seems to me as if there advertising about the service did not effectively target the key demographics.
I don’t live in the US and when I saw this article I told my wife that CNN tried streaming and asked her to guess what they called it, she got it right first guess.
I find the choice of the + suffix on almost all streaming services both highly bizarre and mildly amusing.
It is actually pretty amazing how quickly they self-imploded their brand reputation the past few years, culminating with the Brian Stelter self-own where he's whining how "they" are the real journalists, not Joe Rogan.
Opinionated hosts and guests is the only path to profitability for cable news. Most people read or listen to their news now; TV is for entertainment.
CNN’s problem is that their “personalities” are absolute snore-fests. Fox’s bread and butter are their hosts but they are doing fine for now (cable will die eventually). In the current post-ironic zeitgeist, audiences are drawn to more transgressive discourse. But Don Lemon can’t make hot takes when his audience is Deloitte managers and urban moms (also he’s terminally unfunny).
The left leaning media has become too safe and staid. I think that’s why left sympathetic people are drawn to the new “left” podcasts like Chapo Trap House
First off, this has little to nothing to do with the issue of CNN+ closing, so it smells a lot like flamebait to me... but, assuming this comment was made in good faith:
> Journalism is about reporting events, not interpreting them.
This is a description of an idyllic fantasy world that's never existed.
One can (I think reasonably) argue that the current generation of for-profit news is far more likely to spin the facts according to a predetermined agenda in their never-ending pursuit of viewership and associated profits.
But journalism has never, ever, involved simply "reporting events". Just the decision as to which events to report on is an editorial decision.
It’s fascinating how many big failures like this happen before I’ve heard of the product. I spend a lot of time reading the news (NYTimes, SFChronicle, Twitter, HN, etc.), so I don’t think I’m somehow clueless. The first I heard of CNN+ was after the shutdown decision. Perhaps they didn’t bother to market and advertise this properly. I couldn’t get away from Disney+ or Apple TV+ ads before and after they launched.
"This is not a decision about quality; we appreciate all of the work, ambition and creativity that went into building CNN+, an organization with terrific talent and compelling programming"
That is pure comedy.
The reason why consumers said 'no thanks' is because CNN's propaganda is known partisan trash and not journalism, nor is it even remotely compelling for anyone short of those who sit to the left of Chairman Mao.
[+] [-] TheAceOfHearts|3 years ago|reply
It's actually rather mind-blowing that so much money was invested in such a system. How does that possibly make sense? According to this service [0], CNN has an annual revenue of $190m.
Is this some kind of money funneling scheme or an exec's pet project? How do these execs remain so rich after wasting massive amounts of money on projects that seem doomed to fail right from the start? Seeing this makes me wish you could somehow directly short projects of this nature from large companies.
[0] https://www.zippia.com/cnn-careers-17754/revenue/
[+] [-] jdlyga|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bin_bash|3 years ago|reply
Instead what they delivered was the crap, low effort documentaries they put on to fill gaps in their airtime. Reruns of Anthony Bourdain, weak medical information from Sanjay Gupta, and more social justice than you can shake a stick at.
How on earth did they waste $300m on this? Anderson Cooper 360 with no ads is all they needed.
[+] [-] moralestapia|3 years ago|reply
To each his own, I wouldn't watch that even if THEY paid me for it. Also, the market has spoken ...
[+] [-] dragonwriter|3 years ago|reply
That would be a good way to get a little money from streaming and lose a lot of money from cable distribution, not a net win. There's a reason none of the news networks whose owners have streaming services do that with their big-draw cable news programs.
[+] [-] PKop|3 years ago|reply
What is the appeal to pay for TV news, both with your time and your money?
Online news, from various sources, with an ad-blocker isn't sufficient?
[+] [-] PascLeRasc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mzs|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnDeHope|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] babypuncher|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colinmhayes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bogomipz|3 years ago|reply
>"CNN wooed big-name talent, including Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, to join the service."
In a NYTimes profile from last year Chis Wallace stated:
>"I just no longer felt comfortable with the programming at Fox."[1].
It's worth noting that he was at Fox for 18 years. It's amusing to think that his move to the CNN streaming service just happened to coincide with his breaking point after almost two decades. I believe CNN also made an offer to Megan Fox after she exited Fox News.
My impression of CNN the last few years was that they seemed to be they spending an inordinate amount of time talking about whatever outrageous thing a Fox host just said on air. It's all rather dystopian and meta. The article hints that Discovery would like them to focus on hard-jouralism but I can't recall the last time CNN was hard-journalism. The Ted Turner years, the first Gulf war?
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/business/media/chris-wall...
[+] [-] silisili|3 years ago|reply
It was rather obvious though who the star of the show was supposed to be, and Colmes was rather moderate. The conspiracy theorist in me says they probably handpicked Colmes for that role because he was a rather unattractive guy, and anything Fox can do to make liberals look bad goes.
[+] [-] scarface74|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RickJWagner|3 years ago|reply
I regularly read 'Real Clear Politics' for just this reason. To see what the zealots on either side of the aisle are saying, and to try to triangulate some sort of truth.
[+] [-] robonerd|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nextstep|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kgermino|3 years ago|reply
I personally don't see how it was ever going to work, but it's not my business and I don't know what I'm talking about. They clearly thought they had a chance, tried it, saw it flop, and are willing to quickly admit the mistake and stop the bleeding. You can't succeed if you're not willing to fail.
[+] [-] joegahona|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rvz|3 years ago|reply
What ever happened to 'pivoting' rather than giving up and throwing in the towel?
I don't think any investors would be happy with projects just giving up and losing their money like what had happened to Quibi. The difference is, that the raised money for Quibi was returned back and CNN+ lost. it. all.
Totally giving up even after what happened to Quibi is inexcusable for CNN. It means that they have not learned anything and have admitted to repeating the same mistakes they did and lost more money and shut down quicker than Quibi.
Now they are part of list of the worst launch failures in history. Oh dear.
[+] [-] hajile|3 years ago|reply
It was 300M in complete losses. That's a crazy amount of money.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|3 years ago|reply
They didn't fail, they got a new owner with different brand vision.
[+] [-] fastball|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lkxijlewlf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisMarshallNY|3 years ago|reply
Def not worth it.
BTW: This has nothing to do with perceived (or actual) political bent. I just feel like they threw all pretense of restraint to the wind, and I couldn't trust them; even a little bit.
[+] [-] gsibble|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wolverine876|3 years ago|reply
Remember the 2016 campaign, when they covered Zucker's friend Trump 24/7?
[+] [-] brentm|3 years ago|reply
I think almost no one with cable is looking for more talking heads. Since the back catalog has a value of effectively zero their main audience has to be cord cutters. I do think that would work for CNN+ eventually but it would probably take years to get to scale.
In general though: Single network news subscriptions like this encourage behavior that is a net negative for society. Right now it's hard enough to convince people to change the channel and step out of their bubble to form their own opinions. The last thing society needs is for everyone to only have access to one news channel. Especially one where the viewer is a direct customer as it's only going to encourage these stations to give the viewers more and more of the opinions they already agree with. This will just make people even more opinionated which then drives our politicians to continue down this path of zero compromise and zero legislative productivity.
[+] [-] mikeryan|3 years ago|reply
I’ve done some work with a few NBCUniversal brands (Syfy, Bravo, E) and while they’ve gotten more aligned in recent years the individual brands are still competing with each other for eyeballs and these are folks that are under a single corporate umbrella and mostly in the same building (30 Rock).
In theory you could create a YouTube TV for news, or sports only those efforts are non starters. If a provider wants MSNBC they have to negotiate for a whole package of NBCU brands.
[+] [-] mastazi|3 years ago|reply
The streaming service itself is owned by Streamotion which is owned by Foxtel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxtel
Includes many popular news services (Sky, Fox, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, AlJazeera, NHK etc).
[+] [-] drivers99|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrMan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evanmoran|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BaseballPhysics|3 years ago|reply
I think we can expect a lot more of this kind of trimming as the combined organization continues to remove redundant services and programming, etc.
[+] [-] daveslash|3 years ago|reply
Edit: Wow, didn't expect the down votes, but okay. Grape Juice Plus is a reference to Planet of the Apes - specifically, the 3rd movie in the sequence - the 1971 movie "Escape from the Planet of the Apes". When Zira tries wine for the first time and asks "what is this?", instead of saying "wine", they say "that's, uh, grape juice plus". For whatever silly reason, that scene always stuck with me.
[+] [-] mountainofdeath|3 years ago|reply
There was a time when CNN was real news like the BBC and not a somewhat-centrist entertainment channel.
[+] [-] TrevorJ|3 years ago|reply
It seems to me as if there advertising about the service did not effectively target the key demographics.
[+] [-] jonathanlydall|3 years ago|reply
I find the choice of the + suffix on almost all streaming services both highly bizarre and mildly amusing.
[+] [-] 29athrowaway|3 years ago|reply
Journalism is about reporting events, not interpreting them. Tell me what happened, not what you think about it.
[+] [-] jiscariot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dc-programmer|3 years ago|reply
CNN’s problem is that their “personalities” are absolute snore-fests. Fox’s bread and butter are their hosts but they are doing fine for now (cable will die eventually). In the current post-ironic zeitgeist, audiences are drawn to more transgressive discourse. But Don Lemon can’t make hot takes when his audience is Deloitte managers and urban moms (also he’s terminally unfunny).
The left leaning media has become too safe and staid. I think that’s why left sympathetic people are drawn to the new “left” podcasts like Chapo Trap House
[+] [-] BaseballPhysics|3 years ago|reply
> Journalism is about reporting events, not interpreting them.
This is a description of an idyllic fantasy world that's never existed.
One can (I think reasonably) argue that the current generation of for-profit news is far more likely to spin the facts according to a predetermined agenda in their never-ending pursuit of viewership and associated profits.
But journalism has never, ever, involved simply "reporting events". Just the decision as to which events to report on is an editorial decision.
[+] [-] vincentmarle|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rvz|3 years ago|reply
One of the biggest launch failures since Quibi, but again very unsurprising that it was shut down so quickly.
[+] [-] celestialcheese|3 years ago|reply
I'd imagine all of CNN and WarnerMedia programming moving onto Discovery+ shortly and that killing this division was part of "synergies".
Doesn't mean CNN+ was a roaring success, but it's just not enough time to tell if it was a flop.
[+] [-] Gortal278|3 years ago|reply
I have no idea why they insisted on wasting so much money launching a service 5 years after everyone else.
[+] [-] meatsauce|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meatsauce|3 years ago|reply
That really says it all.
[+] [-] s1mon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meatsauce|3 years ago|reply
That is pure comedy.
The reason why consumers said 'no thanks' is because CNN's propaganda is known partisan trash and not journalism, nor is it even remotely compelling for anyone short of those who sit to the left of Chairman Mao.