Well that's pretty humiliating for CNN.
Have to say though I completely agree with WarnerDiscovery's decision here. The economics of CNN+ were never likely to work - if very few people are willing to tune in to CNN when the channel is only a click away on the remote then why would they suddenly pay extra for CNN+ which had very, very little actual live news and didn't even give the option of watching the CNN channels live.
Thinking people would instead of subscribing to Netflix or Amazon Prime tune in for Jake Tapper's Book Club or would pay extra for Zuckerified CNN rather than using the multiple free and often higher quality news sources around always seemed a stretch.
And the whole is the perfect summary of the Zucker and friends era of CNN which has left its reputation severely damaged. Zucker and friends surely knew that the merger was imminent and surely it was clear Discovery were not keen on CNN+ but rather than holding off the launch or leaving it up to the new owners to decide what to do they decided to spend a fortune and hire a ton of people (with CNN execs surely knowing the rug may be pulled under from it with the new owners) and launch it before the new owners took over.
It sums up the Zucker era perfectly - if Zucker & his fellow execs wanted something to happen it'd happen ethics, journalist integrity and merit be damned. The Andrew & Chris Cuomo chucklefests being a prime example - such an obvious conflict of interest but CNN wanted some 'banter' that would get social media traction so they went full steam on it. The obscene levels of coverage of MH370 or Trump in the year before the 2016 election too were not responsible journalism but because it got eyeballs CNN just went full pelt on it.
An embarassing episode for CNN but the right decision and it does show that Discovery hopefully mean business and will attempt to bring CNN's operations back to basics with the focus on news not talking head panels or 24/7 politics.
Have to say though I completely agree with WarnerDiscovery's decision here. The economics of CNN+ were never likely to work - if very few people are willing to tune in to CNN when the channel is only a click away on the remote then why would they suddenly pay extra for CNN+ which had very, very little actual live news and didn't even give the option of watching the CNN channels live.
Thinking people would instead of subscribing to Netflix or Amazon Prime tune in for Jake Tapper's Book Club or would pay extra for Zuckerified CNN rather than using the multiple free and often higher quality news sources around always seemed a stretch.
And the whole is the perfect summary of the Zucker and friends era of CNN which has left its reputation severely damaged. Zucker and friends surely knew that the merger was imminent and surely it was clear Discovery were not keen on CNN+ but rather than holding off the launch or leaving it up to the new owners to decide what to do they decided to spend a fortune and hire a ton of people (with CNN execs surely knowing the rug may be pulled under from it with the new owners) and launch it before the new owners took over.
It sums up the Zucker era perfectly - if Zucker & his fellow execs wanted something to happen it'd happen ethics, journalist integrity and merit be damned. The Andrew & Chris Cuomo chucklefests being a prime example - such an obvious conflict of interest but CNN wanted some 'banter' that would get social media traction so they went full steam on it. The obscene levels of coverage of MH370 or Trump in the year before the 2016 election too were not responsible journalism but because it got eyeballs CNN just went full pelt on it.
An embarassing episode for CNN but the right decision and it does show that Discovery hopefully mean business and will attempt to bring CNN's operations back to basics with the focus on news not talking head panels or 24/7 politics.