Report: CNN Axes Senior Executive as ‘Doomed’ Streaming Service Unravels
As CNN’s streaming service known as CNN+ flounders, changes are being made at the network’s top levels. Warner Bros. Discovery has laid off CNN chief financial officer Brad Ferrer, replacing him with Neil Chugani…
As 📺CNN’s streaming service known as 📺CNN+ flounders, changes are being made at the network’s top levels.
Warner Bros. Discovery has laid off 📺CNN chief financial officer Brad Ferrer, replacing him with Neil Chugani, Discovery’s CFO for streaming and international, according to an Axios report ominously entitled “📺CNN+ looks doomed.”
The outlet said more high-level layoffs are in store as WarnerMedia reshapes its empire.
Based on five sources it did not name, 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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Report: CNN Axes Senior Executive as ‘Doomed’ Streaming Service Unravels — IJR
But the network is also looking at something new: a live news show to fill the 9 p.m. slot once held by disgraced host Chris Cuomo.
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.
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.”
📺CNN head Jeff Zucker’s resignation in February, a month before the launch of 📺CNN+, likely did not help matters. New head honcho Chris Licht does not take over until May, according to Axios.
The outlet reported that some 📺CNN+ content could endure on 📺CNN’s app, even if the streaming service does not.
