CNN is cutting 100 positions across the company as it accelerates its push into digital subscription products that reach beyond its shrinking cable TV audience.
In a lengthy Wednesday memo, CNN Chairman and Chief Executive Mark Thompson told employees that the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned unit “will lean more heavily into digital products.” He said CNN.com will offer its first digital subscription product by the end of this year, but did not specify what the new offering will carry.
Thompson, who joined CNN from the New York Times Co. last year, has focused on how to strengthen the news operation’s business while its chief source of revenue, pay TV subscribers, is in steady decline. The network’s prime time TV ratings are down dramatically from the highs reached in 2020.
I don’t remember what they called it (maybe CNN Premium?) but for a while, they put their live video behind a paywall. Then that ended and then they did the CNN+ thing.