“We will be the only global video-driven news subscription business,” said Andrew Morse, CNN chief digital officer and head of CNN+, in an interview.
The big three news divisions — ABC, NBC, and CBS — have streaming channels that are free and ad-supported, but have far less content. MSNBC repurposes some of its programming for NBCUniversal’s subscription service, Peacock, while Fox News sells a streamer that focuses on entertainment and right-wing debate, not news.
CNN+ is different from all of these. Still, the service faces headwinds, including looming management changes and outside skepticism about the service’s prospects.
“News is additive. It forms habits. But for a standalone subscription service, it’s hard to sell,” said Julia Alexander, senior strategy analyst at Parrot Analytics, a firm that advises media companies.
Later, CNN+ could be bundled. But to start, it’s a standalone product priced at $5.99 per month. People who sign up directly through CNN in the first four weeks receive “50% off the monthly plan — for life — as long as they remain subscribers,” the company says.
CNN’s hit original series, like “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown,” previously streamed elsewhere, are now available exclusively on the CNN+ library. Acclaimed documentaries and specials are also streamed.
Eight daily newscasts and interview shows will be live throughout the day on weekdays and then available on demand.
Nearly a dozen new weekly programs such as “The Don Lemon Show” and “Jake Tapper’s Book Club” will also premiere during the week.
A dedicated team will cover breaking news and create special reports featuring many of the same correspondents and analysts who appear on CNN.
However, the current CNN experience on TV or on CNN Digital will not change. Anchors will continue to host their existing shows, available on cable and satellite, and reporters will continue to publish stories on CNN.com, the free ad-supported site.
CNN+ is different – part out of necessity, part out of creativity.
WarnerMedia’s lucrative and long-term deals with cable and satellite providers mean that CNN+ cannot simulcast existing channels CNN/US, CNN International or CNN en Español.
But a growing number of American homes don’t have cable anyway, posing a major threat to the future of big media companies. So CNN execs and producers pondered: what would a brand new video news service look like in 2022, freed from all the constraints of traditional television?
Find the answers on CNN+’s daily programming, beginning with “Five Things,” five of the morning’s top headlines, hosted by Kate Bolduan at 7am.
“Because we’re not doing a one-sentence linear feed, we’re able to make a show that allows people to catch up in the morning,” said CNN product director and CNN+ executive director Alex MacCallum. “If that’s five minutes one day and 15 minutes the next day, we have the flexibility to make the shows as long or as short as they need to be to meet any client needs.”
“Go There” at 8:00 am Eastern will feature in-depth coverage from correspondents on the ground, including the war zone in Ukraine. The daytime program continues with The Big Picture with Sara Sidner at 9am, Reliable Sources Daily at 11am, The Source with Kasie Hunt at 4pm, The Global Brief with Bianca Nobilo at 5pm, ” Who’s talking to Chris Wallace?” at 6 p.m. and “The Newscast with Wolf Blitzer” at 7:30 p.m. (Full disclosure: I am the moderator of Reliable Sources Daily.)
CNN executives anticipate that many people will watch these shows on-demand rather than live, inviting a different mindset about coverage.
Weekly programs will feature established CNN stars like Anderson Cooper and newcomers like Audie Cornish and Scott Galloway.
The streaming service’s interactive component, Interview Club, will also be a regular source of content.
“We want to give subscribers a space to ask their questions,” Robyn Peterson, CNN’s chief technology officer, said in an interview.
In the Interview Club, subscribers can submit questions that moderators share with experts. It was “built from the ground up, from the whiteboard to the product,” Peterson said.
An immense amount of work has been done behind the scenes to create a streaming platform that can eventually expand around the world.
The ultimate question is: how many people will pay for video messaging?
CNN is conducting a marketing blitz to raise awareness of the product. Hosts like Wallace are also doing the rounds on other channels.
The launch is made more difficult by the fact that WarnerMedia is about to merge with Discovery. The mega deal is expected to go into effect in April and may herald behind-the-scenes changes.
Alexander said Discovery could take one of two different paths to integrate all brands. “The first is a scale-play bundle,” she said, which combines HBO Max, Discovery+, and CNN+, much like “Disney did with its three services, Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+.”
The second, and more likely way, she said, is to “merge all these services into one platform.”
That’s out of the control of CNN+ staff, who have spent the past few weeks rehearsing new shows, tweaking marketing and fixing software bugs. On Tuesday they will see how the public reacts to the new service.
Peterson said CNN+ will be available on a number of key devices at launch – web, mobile and connected TVs – and will be “rolled out to new devices” in the coming months.
While executives have not commented on when CNN+ might be available outside of the US, “CNN is a brand that is well known around the world,” Morse said. “Apart from the BBC, there really is no other global news organization like CNN. So we see a really significant market opportunity.”