More traditional cable companies are entering the streaming game but it seems CNN Plus news network’s dedicated streaming service is making an exit barely two months since it was launched. Chris Licht, the new CEO of CNN, delivered the news to his new team at an all-hands meeting on Thursday, and the service will shut down entirely on April 30th.
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The CEO congratulated the CNN Plus team in a memo to staff announcing the shutdown and said that the decision “is not a reflection of the quality of the talent and content at CNN+, some of which will migrate to CNN’s programming or some of the company’s other networks.” The decision, he said, was about broader strategy. “In a complex streaming market, consumers want simplicity and an all-in service, which provides a better experience and more value than stand-alone offerings.” Employees will be paid and receive benefits for the next 90 days, he said, and those who don’t end up in other roles at the company will get at least six months’ severance. Andrew Morse, the head of CNN Plus, is leaving the company.
CNN Plus was doomed from the very beginning. CNN imagined the service as a new way of thinking about news coverage, with new personality-driven shows and access to some of CNN’s best original series. It had a somewhat confusing relationship with the parent network; The new streaming services didn’t offer a streaming version of the linear channel and instead tried to build a different, more personalized version of the news report. The company was also attempting to figure out how to bring news content to a more on-demand audience and make the news a more interactive process.
Reports indicate that CNN planned to spend about $1 billion on CNN Plus over a few years and had already poured at least $100 million (and as much as $300 million) into the service. Given the size of the investment, the early subscriber numbers were pretty bleak: Axios reported that about 150,000 people had signed up for the $5.99-a-month service as of this week, while CNBC reported that fewer than 10,000 people were using it on a daily basis.
