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I give them credit for trying and failing quickly. I personally don't see how it was ever going to work, but it's not my business and I don't know what I'm tal

I give them credit for trying and failing quickly. I personally don't see how it was ever going to work, but it's not my business and I don't know what I'm talking about. They clearly thought they had a chance, tried it, saw it flop, and are willing to quickly admit the mistake and stop the bleeding. You can't succeed if you're not willing to fail.

joegahona 4y ago
I am torn between "I give them credit for trying and failing quickly" and "How on earth did user/market research not show them this would be the result?" I.e. I would love to know if the latter had been optimistic and disproven by the reality.
- moralestapia 4y ago
  >"How on earth did user/market research not show them this would be the result?" Oh but it did! That's the problem when you pay people a lot of money to find the evidence you tell them you want Unfortunately, reality does not care about said "studies".
- notreallyserio 4y ago
  It's possible it didn't cost that much to develop, or that what they did develop can be used for non-plus products. Might have been deemed worth a small risk.
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    Most all of these streaming setups are white label of a handful of existing products.
- memish 4y ago
  It's another example of how disconnected the elites are from reality.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
    It is an oddly emotionally satisfying rationale and I reflexively agree. But upon closer examination part of me wonders if this particular project was a victim of creation by committee, where there was only one person, who could make decisions and the rest were well-paid bobbleheads. I have no doubt marketing did their research ( and as much as I hate ads, marketing people look for how things really are ), it is possible only some pieces filtered up and/or dissenting voices were just drowned out by 'why are you holding us up?' type of responses. I am obviously speculating here, but elites ( however you define them ) are people too and subject to most of the same issues as most of us.
    - meatsauce 4y ago
      I think you're spot on. CNN, as a company, is not run like a news organization any more. There is a specific objective and the content they produce is designed to influence rather than to inform. The broader market is onto this dynamic. They are selling a very specific product to a specific audience. It turns out that the audience doesn't think it is worth much. This is another sign that CNN is on life support.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - tsimionescu 4y ago
        While I personally agree with you, it's also important to note that CNN+ had none of the news content of CNN, apparently...
    - billllll 4y ago
      I like your level-headed take. Having been in the trenches on a large scale initiative gone awry, my hunch would be the same as yours: the lack of strong/well informed leadership leads to bad decision-making despite all the checkboxes being checked (market research, etc). In that case, it's easy to blame the "elites" (who certainly do deserve blame). Doing so blindly without deeper reflection is cathartic but not too productive or meaningful. A lot of times, the "elites" are victims of a system bigger than them (established culture, procedures, politics, etc). Spending energy to change said system would IMO be more productive than playing the blame game.
- thefreeman 4y ago
  I think this is actually a result of the WarnerMedia / Discover merger. In a different article they say that the new CEO wants to consolidate under a single streaming service. So they are likely just going to move the content into Discovery+ or HBOMax.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    They spent 300 million on this and got 18k subscribers. There are single youtubers who have more paying patrons on Patreon than that. Merger or not, CNN+ was never going to crawl, nevermind fly.
lkxijlewlf 4y ago
Exactly. The worst thing you can usually do is stay still. Try and fail, try and succeed, those are good things. Not trying is not good.
- meatsauce 4y ago
  Spending a quarter of a billion dollars to fail this bad so quickly is not trying; it is gross incompetence.
  - lkxijlewlf 4y ago
    I don't believe you can look at that dollar figure alone and decide that.
    - bavell 4y ago
      Right, you also have to look at the embarrassingly low subscribers they got using that dollar figure.
rvz 4y ago
> I give them credit for trying and failing quickly. What ever happened to 'pivoting' rather than giving up and throwing in the towel? I don't think any investors would be happy with projects just giving up and losing their money like what had happened to Quibi. The difference is, that the raised money for Quibi was returned back and CNN+ lost. it. all. Totally giving up even after what happened to Quibi is inexcusable for CNN. It means that they have not learned anything and have admitted to repeating the same mistakes they did and lost more money and shut down quicker than Quibi. Now they are part of list of the worst launch failures in history. Oh dear.
- robonerd 4y ago
  With only 18k subscribers, trying to salvage that situation with a pivot seems like a manifestation of the sunk costs fallacy to me. 18k is miniscule even by rando on youtube standards.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> I give them credit for trying and failing quickly. They didn't fail, they got a new owner with different brand vision.
fastball 4y ago
Not sure blowing $300M counts as failing quickly.
hajile 4y ago
This wasn't a 1M startup venture that failed. It was 300M in complete losses. That's a crazy amount of money.

joegahona 4y ago

I am torn between "I give them credit for trying and failing quickly" and "How on earth did user/market research not show them this would be the result?" I.e. I would love to know if the latter had been optimistic and disproven by the reality.

moralestapia 4y ago
>"How on earth did user/market research not show them this would be the result?" Oh but it did! That's the problem when you pay people a lot of money to find the evidence you tell them you want Unfortunately, reality does not care about said "studies".
notreallyserio 4y ago
It's possible it didn't cost that much to develop, or that what they did develop can be used for non-plus products. Might have been deemed worth a small risk.
- jjeaff 4y ago
  Most all of these streaming setups are white label of a handful of existing products.
memish 4y ago
It's another example of how disconnected the elites are from reality.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  It is an oddly emotionally satisfying rationale and I reflexively agree. But upon closer examination part of me wonders if this particular project was a victim of creation by committee, where there was only one person, who could make decisions and the rest were well-paid bobbleheads. I have no doubt marketing did their research ( and as much as I hate ads, marketing people look for how things really are ), it is possible only some pieces filtered up and/or dissenting voices were just drowned out by 'why are you holding us up?' type of responses. I am obviously speculating here, but elites ( however you define them ) are people too and subject to most of the same issues as most of us.
  - meatsauce 4y ago
    I think you're spot on. CNN, as a company, is not run like a news organization any more. There is a specific objective and the content they produce is designed to influence rather than to inform. The broader market is onto this dynamic. They are selling a very specific product to a specific audience. It turns out that the audience doesn't think it is worth much. This is another sign that CNN is on life support.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      While I personally agree with you, it's also important to note that CNN+ had none of the news content of CNN, apparently...
  - billllll 4y ago
    I like your level-headed take. Having been in the trenches on a large scale initiative gone awry, my hunch would be the same as yours: the lack of strong/well informed leadership leads to bad decision-making despite all the checkboxes being checked (market research, etc). In that case, it's easy to blame the "elites" (who certainly do deserve blame). Doing so blindly without deeper reflection is cathartic but not too productive or meaningful. A lot of times, the "elites" are victims of a system bigger than them (established culture, procedures, politics, etc). Spending energy to change said system would IMO be more productive than playing the blame game.
thefreeman 4y ago
I think this is actually a result of the WarnerMedia / Discover merger. In a different article they say that the new CEO wants to consolidate under a single streaming service. So they are likely just going to move the content into Discovery+ or HBOMax.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  They spent 300 million on this and got 18k subscribers. There are single youtubers who have more paying patrons on Patreon than that. Merger or not, CNN+ was never going to crawl, nevermind fly.

lkxijlewlf 4y ago

Exactly. The worst thing you can usually do is stay still. Try and fail, try and succeed, those are good things. Not trying is not good.

meatsauce 4y ago
Spending a quarter of a billion dollars to fail this bad so quickly is not trying; it is gross incompetence.
- lkxijlewlf 4y ago
  I don't believe you can look at that dollar figure alone and decide that.
  - bavell 4y ago
    Right, you also have to look at the embarrassingly low subscribers they got using that dollar figure.

rvz 4y ago

> I give them credit for trying and failing quickly. What ever happened to 'pivoting' rather than giving up and throwing in the towel? I don't think any investors would be happy with projects just giving up and losing their money like what had happened to Quibi. The difference is, that the raised money for Quibi was returned back and CNN+ lost. it. all. Totally giving up even after what happened to Quibi is inexcusable for CNN. It means that they have not learned anything and have admitted to repeating the same mistakes they did and lost more money and shut down quicker than Quibi. Now they are part of list of the worst launch failures in history. Oh dear.

robonerd 4y ago
With only 18k subscribers, trying to salvage that situation with a pivot seems like a manifestation of the sunk costs fallacy to me. 18k is miniscule even by rando on youtube standards.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> I give them credit for trying and failing quickly. They didn't fail, they got a new owner with different brand vision.

fastball 4y ago

Not sure blowing $300M counts as failing quickly.

hajile 4y ago

This wasn't a 1M startup venture that failed. It was 300M in complete losses. That's a crazy amount of money.