“Surprised at the Speed”: Behind the Scenes of CNN+’s Stunning Fall

In mid-January, as CNN was in the midst of an exuberant promotional campaign for its forthcoming streaming platform, CNN+, the network’s digital boss, Andrew Morse, told me, “We’re practical. We know this is going to be extremely difficult, but we’re launching something entirely new. It’s not a service that exists today. We’ve got aggressive but achievable subscription targets. Our one North Star metric is number of paying subscribers.” In CNN+’s first three weeks of existence, the number shining down from that North Star was in the neighborhood of 150,000. Morse and his team were happy, and considered the launch “successful… Read Full Article