Believe it or not, the CNN+ streaming service closes after a month . Despite having had great publicity and being announced in style, especially as Warner Bros’ commitment to digital content, Discovery finally decided to put an end to it, in what could have been just a small test of this content.
The CNN+ streaming platform will stop operating on April 30 , an announcement made on April 21, that is, with just a week of difference. It was Chris Licht himself, the incoming president of CNN, who broke the news, noting that “While the decision is incredibly difficult, it is the right one for the long-term success of CNN.”
The truth is that the situation of CNN + is a bad omen for what is currently happening with Netflix and the collapse of its shares , product of the huge drops in subscriptions in recent times, which has also meant an unprecedented drop in the bag.
However, Netflix will not shut down, instead they will start to turn the wheel a bit; for example, they will advertise a cheap subscription with advertising.
CNN+: debut and farewell
The executive noted that the closure of the streaming platform would allow them as a company to focus resources on the main products that drive their focus, which is to “further enhance CNN’s journalism and its reputation as a world leader in news.”
This news, without a doubt, is a surprising end for a platform that has not yet been born and in which CNN had invested millions of dollars, in a strategy that included an aggressive marketing campaign in the United States.
This operation also included the hiring of hundreds of new employees and the recruitment of big stars from the high-end media, such as Chris Wallace, who comes from Fox News, and Audie Cornish, co-host of NPR.
After the definitive closure of CNN +, Andrew Morse, who serves as digital director of CNN and main creator of the platform, will also leave his position. Those involved, that is, all the employees and talents, learned of the decision just a few hours after making it public.
an end foretold
At first, executives at Discovery, the company that recently bought the conglomerate, thought CNN+ was off to a slow start. At one point, the platform had less than 10,000 people using the service , but before announcing the closure, the platform had, according to internal sources, just over 150,000 subscribers.
CNN planned to spend more than $1 billion on CNN+ over four years , hiring an additional 500 employees, including producers, engineers, and programmers, and renting an additional floor of its Midtown Manhattan offices to accommodate the new staff.
The truth is that Discovery, which now owns the news network, has about $55 billion in debt , which executives are now under pressure to pay. This change would allow to achieve 3 billion dollars in savings, which will result in a belt tightening in some divisions and began with the CNN + streaming platform.
Via: The New York Times
