Warner Bros. Discovery shuttered CNN+ last week – only three weeks after the failed streaming service launched. There were reports that CNN+ was only attracting 10,000 daily viewers despite the network having spent an estimated $300 million to launch the service and another $100 to $200 million to promote the doomed venture. Many reactions to the demise of CNN+ lampooned the network’s disastrous streaming service.
Former CNN producer and network insider doubted the success of CNN+
A former CNN employee tore into the management of the ill-fated streaming service.
“I defy you to find any reasonable person who ever believed that viewers would pay extra money for the dregs of CNN when it was competing for their wallets with Netflix and Disney Plus,” a former CNN producer told Fox News. “Do you want to watch ‘The Mandalorian’ or extra Brian Stelter?”
A CNN insider informed the outlet, “I didn’t get this whole thing from day one. I’m not commenting on the content here. I mean – the basic product itself. I didn’t get why the massive money was spent after a merger had been announced. It was like, ‘Wheee! AT&T gave us the money, let’s burn it!’ I don’t understand it.”
Another CNN insider told the New York Post that the “big people will likely be saved,” but the producers and showrunners face six months in severance or nothing at all.
“Everyone is aghast and furious,” the insider told the Post.
Meghan McCain and Joe Rogan dance on the grave of CNN+
Meghan McCain wrote in the Daily Mail, “Keep in mind, these are also the same people who told coal miners who lost their jobs to go back to college and ‘learn to code.'”
McCain pointed out that CNN’s cable TV network lost 70% of its total audience between February 2021 and February 2022.
She asked, “Why would anyone at CNN believe that the American public would pay extra for content from a brand that is already struggling to bring in audiences?”
“If someone pitched this idea to me, I would have said that they had been spending too much time in the Hamptons with Chris Cuomo and not enough time in the real world where Tik Tok stars, Joe Rogan, and Fox News primetime are the dominating media forces,” McCain added,
Speaking of Joe Rogan, the premiere podcast host also mocked the failed streaming service during a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
“They spent $300 million. They got 10,000 subscribers,” Rogan gleefully razzed CNN+. “Imagine the hubris of thinking that something that people don’t want for free? That you’re going to charge money for it.”
Rogan parodied a possible CNN+ executive meeting about programming, “‘We’re gonna have a Jake Tapper book club.'”
Rogan added, “Jake Tapper seems like a great guy. But I mean, I feel like I don’t have to pay for his book club. I feel like you should put that on Twitter.”
During the podcast, British author and political commentator Douglas Murray jokingly disparaged the streaming service as “CNN Minus” instead of “CNN Plus.”
Kristi Noem takes a shot at President Joe Biden
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem utilized the abrupt demise of CNN+ to bash President Joe Biden’s decision to shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline.
CNN producer Ellie Smith urged people not to revel in the death of CNN+ because it left hundreds of people without jobs.
“PSA if you’re going to tweet something snarky about CNN+, hundreds of journalists and technicians who did nothing but work their tails off just had the rug pulled out from under them. So be kind,” Smith wrote on Twitter.
The Republican governor of South Dakota shot back, “Now you know how the Keystone XL Pipeline workers feel.”
Noem was referencing President Biden canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline – which cost at least 11,000 direct jobs.