Posted on 04/24/2022 8:30:07 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
David Zaslav had been CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery for all of a few hours when he learned he had a problem.
On April 11, the day his newly merged company began trading on Nasdaq, Zaslav greeted New York employees with pasta and ice cream bars, delivering an impromptu rallying cry to his new charges. He was on his way to Washington, next stop on the coronation tour, when a call came in.
His team had just gotten its first look at data from CNN+, the much-promoted subscription streaming service started two weeks before, and the news was grim. Fewer than 10,000 viewers were watching at any given time, despite a multimillion dollar ad campaign and big hires like Chris Wallace. They were recommending a cold-eyed review.
Three days later, shortly after Zaslav appeared with Oprah Winfrey for a rah-rah company town hall, he gathered his deputies inside a low-slung stucco building in Burbank, California, on the Warner Bros. studio lot, and said he agreed with their conclusion: shut it down.
The near-instant collapse of CNN+ amounted to one of the most spectacular media failures in years, a $300 million experiment that ended abruptly with layoffs in the offing and careers in disarray.
This account is based on interviews with a dozen people intimately familiar with the rise and sudden fall of the streaming service. They spoke on condition of anonymity to share the details of sensitive conversations.
CNN+ was introduced to the world on March 28, a day before its debut, with a splashy party on the 101st floor of 30 Hudson Yards, the futuristic Manhattan skyscraper that houses CNN. Network stars posed for pictures by a giant fiberglass sculpture of the CNN+ logo, New York City sprawled beneath their feet.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Axios claimed 150,000 subscriptions but only 10,000 users per day.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/juliorosas/2022/04/21/cnn-shutting-down-n2606172
I’m guessing quite a few of the 150k subscribers got a free month, and hadn’t signed up to pay the monthly fee with only a few days left in the month.
Now the 10k that were watching - the same 10k throughout the day or were they different?
How many of those 150k got a free month?
Never saw anything mentioned about a 'free' month.
Article said '150,000 paying subscribers'.
Quite a few streaming services have a free month. You have to give your credit card, so you’re required to cancel if you don’t want to be charged for the next month.
Now I can see some executive claiming that “we’ve got 150k paying subscribers” even if most of them got a free month.
I’m guessing that’s what happened...I’m not sure though.
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