WWD
CNN+ Goes Minus, Prince Harry Rules the Press, Vanity Fair’s Meta Move
James Fallon
10 min read

PULLING THE PLUG: Well, that was fast. CNN+ — the much-hyped streaming service — is shutting down less than a month after launching with grand ambitions to hire 500 employees and spend $1 billion.

Andrew Morse, CNN’s head of digital and the architect of the streaming service — who presided over a splashy launch party last month — will step down. CNN has already spent about $300 million on the service, for which it lured a cadre of boldface names including erstwhile Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, NPR’s Audie Cornish and chef and food writer Alison Roman.

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Incoming CNN chief executive officer Chris Licht, who was installed by Discovery’s David Zaslav to run the newly consummated Warner Bros. Discovery, broke the difficult news to employees Thursday afternoon during an all-hands meeting.

“CNN will be strongest as part of [Warner Bros. Discovery’s] streaming strategy which envisions news as an important part of a compelling broader offering along with sports, entertainment, and non-fiction content,” said Licht in a statement. “We have therefore made the decision to cease operations of CNN+ and focus our investment on CNN’s core newsgathering operations and in further building CNN Digital.”

In acquiring CNN-parent Warner Media from AT&T (the $43 billion deal closed April 8), Discovery leadership agreed to assume $55 billion in debt. Executives have said they would find $3 billion in savings annually — presumably by eliminating obvious redundancies. But that still leaves a lot of debt to repay.

The streaming strategy for the new company — which includes the assets of HBO Max and Discovery+ — is to group all of the company’s brands under one service. And some CNN+ programming may migrate to that new service while other shows or hosts (particularly Wallace and Cornish) are likely to find homes on the flagship network.

In his own statement about the shuttering of CNN+, J.B. Perrette, head of Warner Bros. Discovery Global Streaming & Interactive, alluded to the competitive nature of the crowded market: “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, and, for the company, a more sustainable business model to drive our future investments in great journalism and storytelling.”

Well before the close of the deal, Zaslav signaled that he viewed CNN’s value as a global news enterprise first. These statements — not to mention overt criticism from leading Discovery shareholder John Malone of CNN’s slide into partisanship in primetime — could signal a reset at CNN. And the shockingly swift shutdown of CNN+ — which will cease operations April 30 — is the clearest evidence yet. But what remains unclear is why former CNN executives, including Morse and former CNN CEO Jeff Zucker and former Warner Media CEO Jason Kilar, plowed ahead with a service that was so obviously out of step with the strategy publicly avowed by the people who would be their new corporate overlords. (Legally, Discovery executives were barred from communicating with their Warner Media counterparts until the merger closed.)

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