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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.
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