The Brief Life of CNN+ Explained
How CNN’s biggest launch in decades failed in less than a month
On April 21st, Warner Bros. Discovery announced the end of the briefly lived and much-touted CNN+ streaming service. Billed as the most important launch since the network’s founding in 1980 (1), the loss of CNN+ marks a significant setback for the company.
According to Brian Steinberg of Variety.com, the launch of CNN+ coincided with the merger of WarnerMedia — CNN’s parent company — and Discovery (2). With Discovery set to assume control in a matter of weeks, CNN+ was hampered by several miscommunications and legal obstacles from the start.
Steinberg notes:
The decision puts an abrupt end to an ambitious and aggressive venture that people familiar with the matter say rankled David Zaslav, the new CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, from the start. Zaslav was annoyed by the decision of Jason Kilar, the former CEO of WarnerMedia when it was owned by AT&T, to launch CNN+ just weeks before Discovery was set to take over operations. But he was unable to communicate with WarnerMedia management, owing to legal boundaries surrounding the merger process.
The initial plan behind CNN+ was to invest $1 billion over the next four years and accumulate a following of over 15–18 million followers in…
