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The Biggest Change in Media Since Cable Is Happening Right Now
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The Biggest Change in Media Since Cable Is Happening Right Now

Streaming news is going to change the way everything — including politics – gets covered. Why aren’t people more excited?

Jack Shafer
Politico Magazine, 2022
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Overview
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

News consumers are moving to streaming platforms in droves, as big cable networks such as NBC and Fox race to dominate the new media space. Warner Bros, however, closed CNN+ for not garnering sufficient views. Its executives failed to understand that subscribers matter in streaming, not viewers, as Jack Shafer writes for Politico. In an ad-free, subscriber-based universe, streaming services have more flexibility and can reach out to more niche audiences. As a new technology, streaming is a “steamroller” that will eventually overtake broadcast and cable news. If CNN doesn’t become part of the steamroller soon, it risks becoming “part of the road.”

Summary

Warner Bros Discovery cancelled CNN+ only one month after the streaming service went live.

CNN+ was a new service that Warner Bros built with the intention of competing against other streaming providers, such as the big three networks – ABC, NBC, CBS – and Fox. But the Warner Bros Discovery corporation shut down CNN+ shortly after taking over CNN. Why? The new owners didn’t believe it was financially viable, even after reviewing “optimistic” projections.

The news came as a shock, especially given that the popularity of streaming services has increased steadily in recent years. CNN defied all naysayers when it went live in 1980 as the first 24-hour news station, challenging the big three networks. At the time, it could do something other broadcasters couldn’t do: Provide around-the-clock, real time reporting of breaking news, such as the Gulf War in 1990. Streaming has a similar “anytime, anywhere quality.”

Streaming services target “rich niche” audiences, not a broad market.

Viewers now watch more streaming hours than they watch hours of broadcast TV. News streaming shouldn’t look like typical broadcast news with its...

About the Author

Jack Shafer is Politico's senior media writer. He also wrote and edited the column “Press Box” for the online magazine Slate. 

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