Two new reports suggest that WarnerMedia’s CNN+ streaming-news show is drawing the sort of viewership numbers more associated with a C-SPAN stream of a subcommittee hearing.
CNBC’s Alex Sherman reported Tuesday that under 10,000 people are watching CNN+ daily, citing an unspecified number of “people familiar with the matter.” Hours earlier Tuesday, Axios’ Sara Fischer reported that a “low adoption rate” would likely lead to a cut of “hundreds of millions of dollars” from a planned $1 billion in product investment set over the next four years.
CNBC’s story quoted a CNN spokesperson as saying management at the WarnerMedia subsidiary remains “happy with the launch and its progress after only two weeks.” CNN confirmed the substance of that comment to FierceVideo, but the company isn’t sharing viewer or subscriber numbers so far.
CNN launched CNN+ March 29 with limited device support — Roku didn’t add it until Monday, and it has yet to reach Google’s Android TV platform. It charges $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year but offers a $2.99 monthly deal in perpetuity for people who sign up directly at CNN+’s site by April 26.
CNN, as of Monday under new management as a property of the just-merged Warner Bros. Discovery, competes with numerous other SVOD services, and being so news-centric may not help its cause.
“Consumers have an abundance of free news sources that currently compete to provide news coverage quickly and comprehensively,” wrote Brett Sappington, vice president at Interpret, in an email. “So, a subscription news service has to provide a clear incremental value that would cause consumers to pay for news.”
He advised CNN+ to lean in on content and perspectives not available elsewhere: “It has to be something that creates an organic buzz that energizes their current CNN audience and draws in new viewers.”
To do that, CNN+ has signed up both high-profile personalities like former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace and some 200 other journalists in less visible roles. They’ll all have to hope for one thing from the service’s new corporate overlords: patience.
“Historically, subscriber growth for niche services takes time,” Sappington wrote. “Some required years to exceed one million subscribers.”
(Disclosure: I’ve written for CNN’s CNN Underscored reviews site.)