Why CNN+’s demise signals the future of streaming TV will be bundled

The shutdown of CNN+ bookends a week marked by massive shifts in the streaming space. Earlier this week, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said that after years of dismissing advertising, the platform would be open to an ad-supported tier. This comes as the streaming giant reported a net loss of subscribers for the first time in a decade. 

Netflix’s willingness to include ads follows a similar decision by Disney, which announced in March it would introduce an ad-supported subscription offering to its Disney+ streaming platform. 

These moves are an indication of a coming change to the streaming landscape thanks to fierce competition. 

“All this tells us is that it's a very competitive industry,” Rajkumar Venkatesan, a professor at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, said regarding the plight of CNN+. He further noted that the market is currently so oversaturated that asking users to pony up for this type of service—which offers one type of content and little else—is a tough ask. That it wasn’t bundled at launch made it an even harder sell.

Even as streaming giants open themselves up to advertising, CNN+ launched on March 29 as a primarily ad-free service. Priced at $5.99 per month, it was meant to serve as an extension of its cable news sibling, with exclusive series and extra programming that couldn’t be found on CNN proper.

It’s a different strategy than other news services. Streaming platforms such as Paramount+ and NBCUniversal’s Peacock include news in their apps, while broadcast news brands such as CBS News, ABC News and NBC News all support free news through their apps.

CNN+ in many ways was a service built around personalities like Jake Tapper and NPR veteran Audie Cornish. It also lacked access to CNN’s linear feeds, so users who wanted to tune in to real-time coverage from CNN, CNN International or HLN needed pay TV credentials to unlock broadcasts for those channels.

Chris Licht, chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, said that CNN would be “strongest as part of WBD’s streaming strategy, which envisions news as an important part of a compelling broader offering.”

According to a survey released earlier this week by Fandom, an entertainment site dedicated to mega-fans, 61% of those surveyed believed their streaming subscriptions are too expensive. The average price a streamer was willing to pay for HBO Max, for example, is $9.30 per month (the platform currently costs $14.99 per month). 

​​“It was never going to be a very big platform from a sales perspective,” said Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at GroupM. The service as it existed at the time the WarnerMedia and Discovery merger was completed also failed to align with Zaslav’s unified streaming vision, Wieser noted. The decision to shutter a pricey standalone service—which was reportedly struggling to draw any significant viewership—will ultimately “be a bullet point” that helps us understand Warner Bros. Discovery’s broader roadmap moving forward, Wieser said. 

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JB Perrette, who was appointed to head up the newly formed company’s streaming efforts, made it clear this week that Warner Bros. Discovery is taking cues from the “all-in” playbook. While CNN+ didn’t make the cut, CNN as an asset will still be core to the company’s vision for the future.

“In a complex streaming market, consumers want simplicity and an all-in service which provides a better experience and more value than stand-alone offerings, and, for the company, a more sustainable business model to drive our future investments in great journalism and storytelling,” Perrette said in a statement. “We have very exciting opportunities ahead in the streaming space and CNN, one of the world’s premier reputational assets, will play an important role there.’’