CNN+ Reportedly Headed For ‘Big Cuts’ Just Two Weeks After Launch

Monica Schipper/Getty Images for CNN+

CNN’s recently launched streaming service, CNN+, is already under fire for lackluster growth, according to a new Axios report out Tuesday.

Axios’ Sarah Fischer reports that CNN’s initially planned investment in the streaming service of $1 billion in its first four years is likely to be cut by the hundreds of millions “in response to a low adoption rate.”

CNN+’s distribution has been under scrutiny since its launch on March 29th. Insider reported on the streamer’s “small” impact on the CNN app’s overall downloads – CNN+ is wrapped up in the CNN app.

“Sensor Tower estimates that CNN app installs grew 33% to 70,000 in CNN+’s first six days compared to the prior six-day period,” notes an Insider report from last week, which argued CNN+ has “come out of the gate with more of a whimper than a bang.”

CNBC also reported on Tuesday that “fewer than 10,000 people are using CNN+ on a daily basis” according to insider sources at the network, which is both a very low figure and a damaging leak that speaks to the mood inside the company.

The streamer’s prospects may be looking up, however, as CNN+ was finally added to Roku on Monday – one of the country’s largest smart TV platforms.

“To date, around $300 million has been spent on the subscription service, which includes a sizable marketing investment,” notes Fischer of CNN’s investment in the streamer, $100 million of which was reportedly spent on a major ad blitz.

Fischer details the expectations of the streamer, writing, “CNN executives, with help from consulting firm McKinsey, originally expected to bring in around 2 million subscribers in the U.S. in the service’s first year and 15-18 million after four years.” She adds that with the expected cut in funding, those expectations are likely to be revised down.

A CNN spokesperson told Mediaite, however, “We continue to be happy with the launch and its progress after only two weeks.”

The notion that just two weeks of subscriber metrics would play an impact on scaling down operations of such a significant launch seems to defy standard marketing practices. Mediaite has been told by a CNN insider that very few individuals within the network are even aware of actual subscriber numbers for the service that launched on March 28.

CNN+’s launch coincided with major changes at WarnerMedia, CNN’s parent company, which Fischer notes led to “confusion internally” as to why the launch was not postponed.

WarnerMedia’s merger with Discovery only just closed on Monday, a week after WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar stepped down. Kilar had been a major force behind CNN+ and WarnerMedia’s other forays into streaming services including HBOMax.

Additionally, CNN is set to get a new chairman as Chris Licht will take the helm on May 1, replacing the recently ousted Jeff Zucker.

Licht has vowed a return to hard news for the ratings embattled network, a pivot that many industry observers believed would be the driving force behind CNN+, which went on a prodigious hiring spree of well-known journalists ahead of its launch.

Vulture recently reviewed CNN+, however, and hit the streamer for doing exactly the opposite:

A $6 per month subscription fee doesn’t give a user access to any daily or weekly CNN TV content, either live or on demand. You can watch Jake Tapper have a fun conversation with Dolly Parton on Jake Tapper’s Book Club, but you can’t stream his show on CNN+ when it airs each weekday on TV, or even the next day on demand. Wolf Blitzer has a nightly CNN+ program, but his trademark Situation Room remains behind a CNN cable paywall.

What’s most perplexing of all is that CNN+ not only fails to give users access to CNN, it doesn’t even try to provide some sort of streaming equivalent of a 24/7 news service.