Is CNN+ shutting down?: In its early days, CNN+ has trouble getting people to watch. Less than 10,000 people use it every day.
Two weeks after CNN+ came out, people who are familiar with the situation say that less than 10,000 people use it every day.
People talked to CNBC under the condition that they could not be named so they could talk about information that wasn’t public.
On March 29, CNN+ went live. The news streaming service that costs $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year to subscribe to is now available on Roku, but not on Android TV. Still, the small number of users makes it hard to predict what will happen to the app now that Discovery and WarnerMedia have joined together to form Warner Bros. Discovery.
To give you an idea of how big that number is, CNN’s cable network lost a lot of viewers last year, but still had an average of 773,000 viewers a day.
Is CNN+ shutting down?
A CNN spokesperson said, “We’re still happy with the launch and how it’s going after only two weeks.”
CNN wanted CNN+ to make a big splash, so it hired big names from other news networks, like Kasie Hunt and Chris Wallace from NBC News and Fox News, respectively. People aren’t sure if there’s enough demand for a stand-alone news streaming service, since most streaming services are focused on entertainment. On its first day, more than 10 million people signed up for Disney+.
CNN hasn’t said how many people have signed up for CNN+. ESPN+, which is owned by Disney and has 21.3 million subscribers, has sports news shows and live event broadcasts. Peacock, which is owned by NBCUniversal and has news programs, has more than 9 million paid members and 24.5 million active accounts each month in the U.S. Peacock’s premium tiers start at $4.99 a month, while ESPN+ costs $6.99 a month.
David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, hasn’t talked about CNN+’s long-term future in public. He told CNBC in February that he wouldn’t decide what to do next until he saw how the app did.
Zaslav said at the time, “I haven’t gotten a business review of what CNN+ will be and how it will be offered.”
People who know about the situation say it’s possible, if not likely, that CNN+ shows will be included in a larger package with HBO Max and Discovery+. There are millions of people who use both of these services.
Jason Kilar, who used to be the CEO of WarnerMedia, decided to launch CNN+ two weeks before the company was merged with Discovery. Last week, Kilar left the company. In an interview with CNBC, he was happy about the number of subscribers, but he didn’t give any numbers.
Kilar told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin, “It’s ahead of my expectations in terms of where the subscribers are, the engagement, and how people are responding to the CNN+ journalists.” “I couldn’t be happier with that group.”
Axios reported earlier on Tuesday that Warner Bros. Discovery’s new leaders plan to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in investments for the service because they are worried about its future. Two people said that Chris Licht, the new head of CNN, will start at Warner Bros. Discovery on May 1 and decide how best to move forward.