Deluded CNN owners think people will pay to watch CNN (apolitical)

[Jimmy Higgins]

So, CNN has announced CNN+, a streaming standalone service (with quite the unoriginal name) for those who CNN thinks are actually willing to pay to watch CNN.

I can't imagine that number is high. For news coverage, I want news, not commentary and commercial breaks. So paying for online access to WashPo or NY Times provides me news. Cable news is more noise than actual news coverage, has been for quite a while now. Long since the days CNN was the only player in town and presented news respectfully.

CNN is great during emergencies or election night coverage, but when it comes to paying for it to stream on demand? Who would pay for that?

 

[Keith&Co.]

CNN is great during emergencies or election night coverage, but when it comes to paying for it to stream on demand? Who would pay for that?

Airports? A stream of headlines without commercials at the gate areas?

 

[Politesse]

The Dinosaur Networks are all still hoping that streaming will coalesce into the new Cable, with expensive subscription packs, as many ads and extra packages as cable, etc. Monoliths are resistant to change, and even when forced to reverse course, struggle to kick old paradigms.

From the article:

CNN can't just sell its current live programming via streaming due to lucrative and long-term deals with cable distributors. The company generates more than a billion dollars in profit annually, largely from cable subscriber fees and advertising.
So CNN is effectively building a parallel track, right next to its existing TV track, to serve both existing cable subscribers who want additional programming and customers who don't have cable at all.

They're stuck, and don't know how to truly pivot.

 

[funinspace]

Now this is a funny 'news' update, and I didn't even have to pay for it...LOL. Pay for CNN+? What's the punchline?

 

[bigfield]

If someone has both cable TV and CNN+, they can get 48 hours of CNN each day!

 

[Politesse]

Who has cable tv these days? I have to go to the gym if I want to know what Anderson Cooper is up to.

 

[Jayjay]

All CNN has to do to make this work is to replicate what made Netflix so successful: exclusive, original content created by an algorithm.

Not sure if it works for news though.

 

[crazyfingers]

I can't stand watching news videos. That's why I gave up on TV news around 1995. Too much fluff, can't skim the topic, etc...

I read the CNN site (and NYT, WaPo, Boston globe and pay the fee) but I completely avoid the stories that are video only.

I am constantly astounded how much time people devote to streaming stuff. Even at my employer, we produce written blogs out the ying-yang. But it's the audio podcasts and the videos that get disproportionate hits. I don't get it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I can't stand watching news videos. That's why I gave up on TV news around 1995. Too much fluff, can't skim the topic, etc...

I read the CNN site (and NYT, WaPo, Boston globe and pay the fee) but I completely avoid the stories that are video only.

I am constantly astounded how much time people devote to streaming stuff. Even at my employer, we produce written blogs out the ying-yang. But it's the audio podcasts and the videos that get disproportionate hits. I don't get it.

Seconded. You watch entertainment, not news. Newscasters are a very low density source of information--video is only useful for showing events, not people.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I can't stand watching news videos. That's why I gave up on TV news around 1995. Too much fluff, can't skim the topic, etc...

I read the CNN site (and NYT, WaPo, Boston globe and pay the fee) but I completely avoid the stories that are video only.

I am constantly astounded how much time people devote to streaming stuff. Even at my employer, we produce written blogs out the ying-yang. But it's the audio podcasts and the videos that get disproportionate hits. I don't get it.

Seconded. You watch entertainment, not news. Newscasters are a very low density source of information--video is only useful for showing events, not people.

I'd say you can easily watch news. The trouble is cable news stations don't broadcast news all that much. And to discuss why this is, I have with me, three cable news whores we have on retainer: Bob Anderson a professor of journalism at Stanford, Mitch Bettleson a fellow from some institute, and Wendy Wendelson a something or other with some right-wing think tank.

Let me start off, with you Bob, why do you think cable news stations are having a hard time actually covering news.

Jimmy, thanks for hav...

I'm sorry that's all the time we have. Thanks to my guests. After the break, a fluff piece.