(PresidentialWire.com)- The ratings disaster known as CNN recently launched its paid subscription alternative CNN+. And let’s just say things aren’t going the way the company had hoped.
According to a report from CNBC last week, since its launch on March 29, CNN+ can barely scrape together 10,000 daily viewers.
Why this low-rated cable news network that can’t attract an audience for its free programming would think it could attract a large audience to its paid subscription service is anybody’s guess.
CNN hasn’t released how many people have already signed up for a subscription to CNN+, which costs $5.99 monthly or $59.99 a year. However, according to unnamed sources who spoke with CNBC, the daily viewership is pathetically small.
While CNN claims to be very happy with how things are going at their streaming service, an Axios report from last week paints a very different picture.
Axios reported that the company is already planning “big cuts” to the subscription service. Initially, the company planned to invest about one billion dollars in CNN+ over the next four years. To date, the company has burned through about $300 million, including what Axios describes as a “sizable marketing investment.”
The company also expected to get 2 million subscribers in the first year, ultimately reaching 15-18 million subscribers after four years. So barely scraping together 10,000 viewers a day must be a gigantic let-down.
Hiring has been frozen. And according to Axios, one CNN executive said there’s a great deal of confusion as to why CNN didn’t wait until after the Discovery merger to launch its subscription service.
Former Fox News host Chris Wallace isn’t taking this at all well.
As you may recall, Wallace left his lucrative job at the high-rated Fox News Channel to join the fledgling CNN+ subscription service.
Last week, former Mediaite reporter Jon Nicosia revealed that the disastrous launch of CNN+ has Chris Wallace in a fury. In a tweet last Tuesday, Nicosia said Wallace was “having daily breakdowns” over the CNN+ dumpster fire. According to one of Nicosia’s sources at CNN, Wallace is threatening to walk unless CNN gives him Chris Cuomo’s former timeslot during CNN primetime.
