4 ms·

It was a way to spend money to stream propaganda directly into your family home in order to become a misinformed neurotic mess. It shut down after a few weeks b

It was a way to spend money to stream propaganda directly into your family home in order to become a misinformed neurotic mess. It shut down after a few weeks because netflix for disinformation wasn't as popular as some executives expected.

datavirtue 5y ago
After a month you don't know much about the market. Seems like someone wanted it dead from the beginning.
- briandear 5y ago
  CNN+ really didn’t have any marquee talent. MSMBC has Maddow and people would pay to watch her, Fox has Tucker, people would (and do) pay to watch him on Fox Nation. But people aren’t going to get out their wallets for Don Lemon. That isn’t snark, his TV ratings support that assertion. If CNN wasn’t force fed to people at airports, I’m not sure if they would have any viewers at all, at least not in any profitable numbers. Jeff Zucker ruined CNN. It used to be a trusted centrist organization but instead they are stuck in a limbo zone of not being as good at being left wing as MSNBC despite trying and being left wing enough that they don’t really catch the center very well. MSNBC wins the left, Fox gets the right. CNN is just like an MSNBC also-ran. CNN has some really good hard news and foreign policy journalists, but they are overshadowed by a lackluster commentators that alienate people that don’t really want another Fox or MSNBC. The Cuomo nonsense from both the host and the governor turned a lot of people off as well. Their double down as the Anti-Trump network busted them when they didn’t have Trump around to drive ratings. Now they are just a shell. The ratings of regular CNN are pretty terrible as it is. The idea that people would pay for more CNN is just not supported by the data. They spent $300 million and accomplished very little. A foolish leader would keep that project alive. How many more hundreds of millions would it take to get it to a critical mass of users to make it not only profitable, but profitable enough to earn back that massive investment? Anyone that has been to business school would see that CNN+ was a Zucker vanity project that was badly executed. It will likely be an MBA case study right up there with New Coke.
  - markoman 4y ago
    CNN lacks 'marquee talent' because they wanted their programming to be less about the personalities reading the news and more about drilling down into the stories themselves and finding experts who can offer insight. Fox News, on the other hand, has found that they can drive viewership not only with a bevy of leggy blondes but with strong, domineering hosts in weeknight commentary slots. Witness Bill O'Reilly and his 'shut up' and faux 'no spin' catchphrases. Fox held onto Bill until the sexual harassment suits forced them to shut him down. As bad as Bill was, he wasn't as toady as Hannity is today, towing the party line to a point that he is unwatchable for all but the most indoctrinated. The Five is another Fox show that offers Fox personalities a means to build up their own personal brands, much like how Greg Gutfeld has done now in his own show. In fostering a stable of personalities, Fox places few limits on how far they can go. On Monday of this week, the mononymous Kennedy gratuitously muttered about how Bruce Springsteen was a 'massive pinko', merely as 'Glory Days' was playing on her show's return from commercial break [0]. Only a show that feels like it has its viewers eating of the palm of it's hand would act so brazenly. While CNN is flawed with weak hosts and is overly repetitive, it was surely a source of fresh air during the Trump impeachments when the bias of both Fox News & Business made their shows mostly a fictional defense of Trump. Your 'business school case study' discussion needs to consider the fact that right now is a very poor time to start up a streaming service, regardless of the quality of the CNN+ service itself. Look at what just happened at Netflix earlier this week with the drop in subscribers. The market is simply reaching saturation. Also, give CNN credit for cleaning house of Cuomo, Zucker and even his girlfriend -- but this meant that CNN+ lost its brainchild Zucker. Let's not forget there was a time when Zucker was a wunderkind [1]. At the same time, the fee structure was poorly thought out and the material just wasn't there. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulCJn4giT9c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulCJn4giT9c [1] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/10/endurance-of-jeff-zucker-cnn.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/10/endurance-of-jeff-zu...
- briandear 5y ago
  Also, you don’t learn about the market after the fact. Spending $300 million requires one to know the market long before. And the executives as CNN clearly didn’t do their homework. Predicting failure can be hard, but creating a paid streaming service for a network already getting hammered in the ratings was pretty foolish. It was like an abused spouse thinking that getting pregnant would suddenly stop the abuse. They should fix CNN itself, build an audience, then try to further monetize with CNN+. They did it backwards.

datavirtue 5y ago

After a month you don't know much about the market. Seems like someone wanted it dead from the beginning.

briandear 5y ago
CNN+ really didn’t have any marquee talent. MSMBC has Maddow and people would pay to watch her, Fox has Tucker, people would (and do) pay to watch him on Fox Nation. But people aren’t going to get out their wallets for Don Lemon. That isn’t snark, his TV ratings support that assertion. If CNN wasn’t force fed to people at airports, I’m not sure if they would have any viewers at all, at least not in any profitable numbers. Jeff Zucker ruined CNN. It used to be a trusted centrist organization but instead they are stuck in a limbo zone of not being as good at being left wing as MSNBC despite trying and being left wing enough that they don’t really catch the center very well. MSNBC wins the left, Fox gets the right. CNN is just like an MSNBC also-ran. CNN has some really good hard news and foreign policy journalists, but they are overshadowed by a lackluster commentators that alienate people that don’t really want another Fox or MSNBC. The Cuomo nonsense from both the host and the governor turned a lot of people off as well. Their double down as the Anti-Trump network busted them when they didn’t have Trump around to drive ratings. Now they are just a shell. The ratings of regular CNN are pretty terrible as it is. The idea that people would pay for more CNN is just not supported by the data. They spent $300 million and accomplished very little. A foolish leader would keep that project alive. How many more hundreds of millions would it take to get it to a critical mass of users to make it not only profitable, but profitable enough to earn back that massive investment? Anyone that has been to business school would see that CNN+ was a Zucker vanity project that was badly executed. It will likely be an MBA case study right up there with New Coke.
- markoman 4y ago
  CNN lacks 'marquee talent' because they wanted their programming to be less about the personalities reading the news and more about drilling down into the stories themselves and finding experts who can offer insight. Fox News, on the other hand, has found that they can drive viewership not only with a bevy of leggy blondes but with strong, domineering hosts in weeknight commentary slots. Witness Bill O'Reilly and his 'shut up' and faux 'no spin' catchphrases. Fox held onto Bill until the sexual harassment suits forced them to shut him down. As bad as Bill was, he wasn't as toady as Hannity is today, towing the party line to a point that he is unwatchable for all but the most indoctrinated. The Five is another Fox show that offers Fox personalities a means to build up their own personal brands, much like how Greg Gutfeld has done now in his own show. In fostering a stable of personalities, Fox places few limits on how far they can go. On Monday of this week, the mononymous Kennedy gratuitously muttered about how Bruce Springsteen was a 'massive pinko', merely as 'Glory Days' was playing on her show's return from commercial break [0]. Only a show that feels like it has its viewers eating of the palm of it's hand would act so brazenly. While CNN is flawed with weak hosts and is overly repetitive, it was surely a source of fresh air during the Trump impeachments when the bias of both Fox News & Business made their shows mostly a fictional defense of Trump. Your 'business school case study' discussion needs to consider the fact that right now is a very poor time to start up a streaming service, regardless of the quality of the CNN+ service itself. Look at what just happened at Netflix earlier this week with the drop in subscribers. The market is simply reaching saturation. Also, give CNN credit for cleaning house of Cuomo, Zucker and even his girlfriend -- but this meant that CNN+ lost its brainchild Zucker. Let's not forget there was a time when Zucker was a wunderkind [1]. At the same time, the fee structure was poorly thought out and the material just wasn't there. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulCJn4giT9c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulCJn4giT9c [1] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/10/endurance-of-jeff-zucker-cnn.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/10/endurance-of-jeff-zu...
briandear 5y ago
Also, you don’t learn about the market after the fact. Spending $300 million requires one to know the market long before. And the executives as CNN clearly didn’t do their homework. Predicting failure can be hard, but creating a paid streaming service for a network already getting hammered in the ratings was pretty foolish. It was like an abused spouse thinking that getting pregnant would suddenly stop the abuse. They should fix CNN itself, build an audience, then try to further monetize with CNN+. They did it backwards.