Warner Bros. Discovery decided to stop CNN + less than a month after launching the expensive streaming service, which caused widespread ridicule and confusion among critics and insiders, but a CNN + host insisted it could be successful.
“I’m not letting you find a sensible person who once believed that viewers would pay extra for CNN’s sludge when competing for their wallets with Netflix and Disney Plus,” a former CNN producer told Fox News Digital. “Do you want to watch The Mandalorian or the extra Brian Stelter?”
Most onlookers believe that Warner Bros. Discovery shut down CNN + less than a month after launching the service, which reportedly cost about $ 300 million for the disaster, but CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter is less sure.
“It is too early to know whether this product, whether this service, was a success or a failure,” Stelter said in Friday’s edition of the platform’s Reliable Sources Daily, which will soon be closed.
“Today, all haters say this is a failure. “I don’t know if we can judge that at all, because there just wasn’t enough time because of the change in the direction of the leadership,” he said.
Stelter, one of several CNN hosts who also hosts the short-lived platform, dismissed CNN +’s failure over a “crazy clash of strategies” as CNN president Jeff Zucker and former WarnerMedia chief executive Jason Killar apparently had different differences. vision of the regime after the merger of the leaders of Warner Bros. Discovery, who want the company’s streaming assets to be housed in one place.
“It’s too early to know whether this product, whether this service was successful or unsuccessful,” Stelter desperately tried to streamline CNN +’s implosion. And rebuke the haters. pic.twitter.com/vCFR3Q7dT4
– Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) April 22, 2022
CNN + was largely the brainchild of Zucker, who was forced to resign earlier this year before CNN’s long-planned merger with WarveryMedia’s parent company, Discovery. The failed service included liberal-minded content long accepted by Zucker, as well as cultural and heavy newscasts. Killar, believed to be the man responsible for ousting Zucker in February, also left the company after the merger was completed.
Zucker and Killar were known to be head-to-head, but they seemed to agree with the need for CNN +, which was quickly struggling to attract viewers.
CNBC said only 10,000 people had used the service on a daily basis for two weeks, and Axios said earlier this week that only 150,000 people had registered in total. However, Stelter, considered a loyalty to Zucker, wrote an article entitled “Clash Strategies Doomed to CNN + amid a corporate merger,” which does not mention the shockingly low number of service subscribers.
“From the POV of the leadership team that launched CNN +, one of the world’s leading news brands had to start a subscription business to secure its future. It was an expensive but necessary bet – and it had to be made regardless of the timing of the merger, “Stelter wrote, adding that his new bosses accused the Zucker regime of moving forward despite the impending merger.
Brian Stelter rejected the failure of the streaming service due to a “crazy clash of strategies”. Getty Images
The former CNN producer believes that someone should be held responsible for the failure, as hundreds of employees will be fired, albeit with six months of compensation, if they can not find new roles in the company.
“There must be consequences for the CNN executives who failed to launch, although Discovery clearly telegraphed their skepticism,” said the former CNN producer. “Everything had to be put on hold on the day Jeff Zucker was fired because no one else at that level ever thought CNN + could work.
While Stelter says it may never be clear if the venture was successful, others say it was doomed to jump. News of the upcoming closure of the service dominated social media on Thursday, with CNN critics making every joke imaginable with the failed project. Some reporters in other media have been critical of people who make frivolous remarks about employees who lose their jobs.
Outkick founder Clay Travis is among the critics who mocked CNN + content.
“Who knew that America was not pushing for more Rex Chapman and more awakened analysts than Jamel Hill?” And that there wasn’t much demand for Don Lemmon, Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper or Brian Stelter? That Americans didn’t say, “Hey, CNN, we chose not to watch your programs when they’re free, maybe what [you] “People need to be charged directly,” Travis said sarcastically in Outkick the Show.
The CNN + streaming service stopped operations less than a month after launching, leaving many to believe the $ 300 million service was a disaster. Getty Images
People at CNN’s elegant Hudson Yards headquarters even doubted why CNN + even existed.
An CNN insider praised the technical aspects and content of the service, but was confused by the huge investment after the announcement last year of the Discovery-Warner Media merger.
“I didn’t understand all this from day one,” an insider told Fox News Digital. “I am not commenting on the content here. I mean – the main product itself. I did not understand why the huge amount of money was spent after the merger was announced. It was like hey! AT&T gave us the money, let’s burn it. Do not understand it.”
The insider said they were not alone in the mood at the company and employees were never aware of why the old management insisted that the service be launched days before the new management took over.
“None of those involved have ever had an answer to that,” they said. “It’s always been – Killar wants it.”
NewsBusters Deputy Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Fondacaro said Stelter was simply breaking the news of the shutdown following a tumultuous marketing campaign and the hiring of names such as Chris Wallace, Casey Hunt, Odd Cornish and Eva Longoria.
Jeff Zucker was forced to resign earlier this year before the failed launch of CNN + .Getty Images for WarnerMedia
“Stelter points out that the collapse of CNN + is simply tantamount to a clash of strategies between the new and previous leadership. But it really shows that Stelter knows who to talk to in order to get the answers he wants to hear, “Fondacaro told Fox News Digital.
“He uses the approach of the idealistic company man, talking about how great CNN + could be if given the time, but he doesn’t show what the numbers are. We have all seen the reports of 10,000 daily users and anemic subscriber base, which they tried to strengthen at the start with a 50% discount on sales, “added Fondacaro. “Like everything said, their line-up on the show wasn’t that great. You had, by the way, a talk show with Don Lemon, one of their lower-rated hosts. Add Stelter with a daily extension of his poor performance Sunday show and it’s not appetizing. ”
Stelter has long been accused of being almost a CNN spokesman, and Radar Online speculated earlier this year that he served as a dog to attack Zucker. Last August, he was pressured by Late Show host Stephen Colbert over CNN’s handling of the Chris Cuomo saga, which involved his brother Andrew’s sexual harassment scandal.
Stelter defended Cuomo’s net and behavior during the exchange, while Colbert pointed to a “strange conflict of rules” in the game.
Colbert’s executive producer at the time was Licht, the new head of CNN, who told staff that CNN + would close.
Megan McCain also disagreed with Stelter and called CNN + a “predictable disaster” in a scathing column in the Daily Mail.
“Why would anyone at CNN believe that the American public would pay extra for content from a brand that is already struggling to attract an audience?” Nielsen, the service that tracks television ratings, found that CNN’s total audience in February 2022 was down nearly 70 percent from a year earlier, McCain wrote.
CNN + will cease operations on April 30.
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