Warner Bros. Discovery decided to pull the plug on CNN+ less than a month after the pricey streaming service launched, sparking widespread ridicule and confusion among critics and insiders, but a CNN+ host insisted it had been a success could.
“I challenge you to find any sane person who ever believed that viewers would pay extra money for CNN’s dregs when it was competing for their wallets with Netflix and Disney Plus,” a former CNN producer told CNN Fox News Digital. “Would you like to see ‘The Mandalorian’ or extra Brian Stelter?”
Most viewers consider it a disaster that Warner Bros. Discovery shut down CNN+ less than a month after the launch of the service, which is said to have cost around $300 million, but CNN’s media correspondent Brian Stelter isn’t so sure.
“It’s too early to tell if this product, this service was a success or a failure,” Stelter said in Friday’s Reliable Sources Daily on the soon-to-be-closed platform.
“They all have haters today saying this thing was a failure. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to appreciate that because management’s change of direction just didn’t allow enough time,” he said.
Stelter, one of several CNN anchors who also hosted a show on the short-lived platform, has dismissed the failure of CNN+ due to a “crazy conflict of strategy” as CNN President Jeff Zucker and former WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar clearly have a a different vision was held by the post-merger regime of Warner Bros. Discovery executives, who want the company’s streaming assets to be housed in one place.
“It’s too early to know if this product, this service was a success or a failure,” Stelter tried desperately to explain the CNN+ implosion. And he blamed 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 ahead of CNN’s parent company WarnerMedia’s long-planned merger with Discovery. The failed service included liberal-minded content, which Zucker had long embraced, as well as culture and tough newscasts. Kilar, who is believed to have been responsible for ousting Zucker in February, also left after the merger was completed.
Zucker and Kilar were known for bumping into each other but seemed catered to the need of CNN+, which quickly struggled to attract viewers.
CNBC reported that just 10,000 people used the service daily for two weeks, and Axios reported earlier this week that a total of just 150,000 people signed up. However, Stelter, who is said to be a sugar loyalist, wrote an article titled “Clashing Strategies Doomed CNN+ Amid Corporate Mergers,” which made no mention of the service’s shockingly low reported subscriber count.
“From the perspective of the leadership team that launched CNN+, one of the world’s leading news brands needed to launch a subscription business to secure its future. It was an expensive but necessary bet — and had to be made regardless of the timing of the merger,” Stelter wrote, adding that his new bosses accused Zucker’s regime of moving forward despite the impending merger.
Brian Stelter has dismissed the streaming service’s failure due to a “crazy clash of strategies”. Getty Images
The former CNN producer believes someone needs to be held accountable for the debacle as hundreds of employees are being laid off, albeit with six months’ severance pay, if they fail to find new roles at the company.
“There should be ramifications for CNN executives who pushed through the launch despite Discovery’s clear skepticism,” said the former CNN producer. “The day Jeff Zucker got fired, everything should have paused because no one at that level ever thought CNN+ could work.”
While Stelter claims it may never have been clear if the venture was a success, others believe it went from jump to failure. News of the service’s imminent closure dominated social media on Thursday, with CNN critics cracking every joke they could think of about the failed project. Some reporters from other media outlets criticized the people who made flippant remarks about the loss of employees.
Outkick founder Clay Travis is among the critics who have poked fun at CNN+’s content offerings.
“Who knew America didn’t want more Rex Chapman and more Jemele Hill waking analysis? And that there wasn’t a huge demand for more Don Lemon, Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper, or Brian Stelter? That Americans didn’t say, ‘Hey, CNN, we decided not to watch your program if it’s free, maybe what [you] You have to charge people directly,'” Travis said sarcastically on Outkick the Show.
Streaming service CNN+ ceased operations less than a month after its launch, leaving many feeling the $300 million service was a disaster. Getty Images
People at CNN’s swanky Hudson Yards headquarters even questioned why CNN+ even existed.
A CNN insider praised the technical aspects and content of the service but was confused by the massive investment following the announcement of Discovery and Warner Media’s merger last year.
“I didn’t get the whole thing from day one,” the insider told Fox News Digital. “I am not commenting on the content here. I mean – the base product itself. I didn’t understand why the massive money was being spent after a merger was announced. It was like wheee! AT&T gave us the money, let’s burn it. I do not get it.”
The insider said they’re not alone in this sentiment at the company, and employees have never been told why old management insisted the service be rolled out days before new management took over.
“None of those involved ever had an answer to that,” they said. “It was always – Kilar wants it.”
NewsBusters deputy editor Nicholas Fondacaro thinks Stelter is simply spreading the news of the service’s closure, which comes after a splashy marketing campaign and the hiring of the likes of Chris Wallace, Kasie Hunt, Audie Cornish and Eva Longoria.
Jeff Zucker was forced to resign for WarnerMedia earlier this year ahead of the failed launch of CNN+.Getty Images
“Stelter has touted sources who claimed the collapse of CNN+ was merely tantamount to conflicting strategies between the new and previous leadership. But that really just goes to show that Stelter knows who to talk to to get the answers he wants to hear,” Fondacaro told Fox News Digital.
“He takes the idealistic Firmenmann approach in talking about how great CNN+ could have been had it been given the time, but he doesn’t show what the numbers are like. We’ve all seen the reports of 10,000 daily users and an anemic subscriber base, which they tried to boost at launch with a 50 percent discount,” Fondacaro added. “All in all, their lineup of shows wasn’t that great. Among other things, they had a talk show with Don Lemon, one of their lower-rated hosts. Add Stelter to its poorly performing Sunday show with a daily extension and it’s not appetizing.
Stelter has long been accused of serving as a quasi-spokesperson for CNN, and Radar Online suggested earlier this year that he served as Zucker’s attack dog. Last August, he was pressed by The Late Show host Stephen Colbert for CNN’s handling of the Chris Cuomo saga, which centered on his brother Andrew’s sexual molestation scandal.
Stelter defended the network and Cuomo’s behavior during the exchange, while Colbert pointed out the “strange rules conflict.”
Colbert’s executive producer at the time was Licht, the new head of CNN, who informed the staff that CNN+ would be shutting down.
Meghan McCain also disagreed with Stelter, calling CNN+ a “predictable disaster” in a scathing Daily Mail column.
“Why would anyone at CNN think that the American public would pay extra for content from a brand that is already struggling to attract viewers? Nielsen, the service that tracks TV ratings, found that in February 2022, CNN’s total viewership was down nearly 70% from a year earlier,” McCain wrote.
CNN+ will cease operations on April 30.