WarnerMedia closes CNN Plus just a month after launch

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Warner Bros. Discovery has decided to shut down CNN Plus, the $350 million digital streaming gamble of former news network president Jeff Zucker, just a month after its launch.

After completing the acquisition of Warner earlier this month, the team of the conglomerate’s new chief executive, David Zaslav, analyzed CNN’s business and whether it made sense to invest in a streaming service for the cable news channel, according to with people familiar with the matter.

The old guard at Warner, including Zucker and former WarnerMedia chief executive Jason Kilar, had come up with an ambitious plan to build a CNN stream. CNN executives rushed to launch the service on March 29, just a week before the Warner-Discovery deal closed.

The news came on the same day that Warner said its first-quarter operating profits were down a third from a year earlier to $1.3 billion, which the company attributed to the CNN launch. Plus, investments in HBO Max and lower advertising revenue.

WarnerMedia said it gained an additional 3 million subscribers to its streaming service HBO and HBO Max in the first quarter.

The company attracted an additional 4.4 million customers in the US last year, reaching 48.6 million subscribers. By comparison, Netflix has around 74.6 million subscribers in the US and Canada.

Earlier this week, Netflix revealed that its decade of subscriber growth came to an end in the first quarter of the year. Its shares fell nearly 40% on Wednesday (20).

After years of belittling the competition — as HBO, Apple and Disney launched new streaming services — Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings admitted this week to investors that his new competitors have “some really good shows and movies.”

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