RIP CNN+, March 2022-April 2022

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)

CNN+, the streaming-only fork of CNN with a mix of exclusive content and the news network's Video on Demand archives, will shut down at the end of the month-only 31 days after it debuted.

The service launched on March 29 as a $5.99 standalone service, despite coming from the same corporate family that's loudly pushing HBO Max-and, thanks to a recent massive acquisition, also controls Discovery+. In a Wednesday statement on the CNN+ shutdown, current Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO J.B. Perrette appeared to acknowledge the market reality of one-too-many streaming options: "In a complex streaming market, consumers want simplicity and an all-in[-one] service which provides a better experience and more value than stand-alone offerings."

While CNN+ launched with high-profile exclusive hosts like former Fox News host Chris Wallace and NPR vet Audie Cornish, and reportedly met internal expectations with a subscriber count as high as 150,000, it also began life as part of the old AT&T Time Warner corporate structure. In the wake of Discovery's acquisition of all things Time Warner from AT&T, Perrette and new CNN CEO and Chairman Chris Licht have repeatedly gone on the record expressing their interest in creating a single megaton streaming option for its combined media properties.

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments