CNN+ Shuts Down Less Than A Month After Launch

CNN’s much-hyped streaming service saw traffic peak, stall, and then fall.

CNN+ Traffic Breakdown

• Launch surge: CNN+’s audience grew to double Fox Nation’s in monthly unique visitors this March, accelerating rapidly from its official launch on March 29th. It reached 2.3M, unique visitors, in March 2022 compared to Fox News’ 1.2M monthly unique visitors, according to Similarweb estimates.
  • The website reached 566,558 unique visitors on the day of its launch on March 29th.
• Growth Stalls and then Falls: After reaching 2,772,615 unique visitors the week of the launch (Mar 28), the CNN+ site traffic only grew 1.9% the following week (Apr 4), followed by a 48% steep decline the week of April 11th, less than a month after its launch.
• Streaming Service Halted: On April 21st, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that the site was shutting down. CNN+ was developed under the former parent companies of WarnerMedia and the Warner Bros. film studio prior to its merger with Discovery.
  • The streaming industry as a whole is under pressure, as consumers reevaluate their subscriptions.
  • On April 19th, Netflix announced that 1Q22 subscriber net additions fell by 200,000.

CNN+ Payments & Subscription Page Traffic

• CNN+ was unable to maintain the initial launch surge, with- desktop traffic to CNN+’s subscription purchasing page declining 31% week over week (Apr 6 – Apr 12) and falling another 56% the following week (Apr 13 –  19), a sign that the launch surge in visits was unsustainable and did not translate to converted subscribers.

CNN+ vs. Fox Nation

• Given the launch surge, it isn’t surprising that CNN+’s traffic numbers briefly surpassed Fox Nation’s. However, data from the last 28 days show that Fox Nation’s audience was much more engaged – spending over twice as much time as CNN+’s audience and viewing more pages per visit. For a subscription business, engagement is one of the most important metrics.
• These engagement levels could be explained by CNN+’s initial audience including people who visited the site out of curiosity more than intent to consume content.
• While CNN+ and Fox Nation are competitors in the traditional sense, there is a negligible/statistically insignificant overlap between the two audiences (less than 3%).

CNN+ Most Popular Shows Ranked by Site Page View Share

Last 28 Days as of Apr 11 | Worldwide | All Traffic

1. Reliable Sources Daily – Brian Stelter (20.8%)

2. Go There (18.9%)

3. Big Picture (10.5%)

4. Parental Guidance – Anderson Cooper (1.07%)

5. Jake Tapper’s Book Club (0.7%)

6. The Global Brief – Bianca Nobilo (0.2%)

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