CNN Fires Senior Executive as Streaming Service Fails to Attract Viewers
The outlet said more high-level layoffs are coming
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As CNN+ continues on its path to complete destruction, the network has resorted to axing executive-level staff.
According to an Axios report ominously entitled "CNN+ looks doomed":
”Warner Bros. Discovery has laid off CNN chief financial officer Brad Ferrer, replacing him with Neil Chugani, Discovery’s CFO for streaming and international."
The outlet said more high-level layoffs are coming.
Axios reported that CNN’s corporate parent has also pulled the plug on marketing CNN+, which has about 150,000 subscribers.
Executives had hoped for 2 million subscribers in the service’s first year.
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But the network is also looking at something new: a live news show to fill the 9 p.m. slot once held by disgraced former host Chris Cuomo.
As The Western Journal reported:
Internal data indicates that programming that looks like live TV — Axios specifically mentioned “5 Things with Kate Bolduan” and “Reliable Sources Daily” with Brian Stelter — is what has connected with viewers on CNN+.
Axios reported that within CNN, “executives are frustrated that new leadership is moving quickly to dismantle what they see as an eventual lifeline for the cable network.”
CNN’s true believers think the pause in marketing CNN+ means it will never achieve what was planned in the days when CNN wanted to invest $1 billion in a four-year plan to make the service profitable.
Although CNN+ recently launched on Roku, which is expected to bring in subscribers, insiders fear that growth will be a blip and not a boom.
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Axios reported that Discovery wants one big streaming service, not niche ones, and would have been happier had CNN+ never launched.
The outlet noted that there is a philosophical change as well as a programming one taking place.
“Discovery executives are focused mostly on returning CNN to its journalistic core, a point Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav reiterated in a town hall last week,” Axios reported.
“That includes less of a focus on primetime perspective programming, and more of a focus on hard, breaking news. CNN+ features an array of soft news content, which doesn’t align with Discovery’s broader vision for CNN.”
As Neon Nettle reported last week, former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace is having "daily breakdowns" over the “miserable failure” of the new streaming platform.
Wallace has voiced frustration to his staffers over CNN+, according to reporter Jon Nicosia.
“SOURCE: Chris Wallace is ‘having daily breakdowns’ over the ‘miserable launch’ of [CNN+],” Nicosia said.
Wallace said that he left Fox News when his colleagues “began to question the truth” pertaining to the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill.
“I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion,” Wallace told The New York Times.
“But when people start to question the truth — 'Who won the 2020 election?' 'Was Jan. 6 an insurrection?' — I found that unsustainable.”
