CNN launches new all-access subscription service
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CNN on Tuesday unveiled its new subscription streaming service, All Access, three years after the chaotic collapse of CNN+.
Why it matters: Unlike CNN+, the new service is like a "close sibling" of CNN's core cable product, CEO Mark Thompson tells Axios.
Between the lines: CNN+, which was a much more expensive endeavor, was meant to be additive to cable, with shoulder programming that complemented CNN's live feed, such as "Jake Tapper's Book Club" and a weekday version of the company's old cable media show, "Reliable Sources."
- That required CNN to build and market a whole new set of shows, instead of mostly tapping into its existing programming.
- "What you're going to get is going to be very close to the classic CNN experience, as well as the whole of the website and all the VOD [video-on-demand] in the library," Thompson says.
Zoom in: The new service offers users access to select live programming from CNN's domestic channel and CNN International.
- It will also include free ad-supported streaming channels CNN Headlines, which features live breaking news updates, and CNN Originals, which houses CNN's long-form library content.
- The service also includes special access to certain live feeds during breaking news and events, as well as full access to CNN's website content and digital journalism.
- Current subscribers to CNN's basic tier, which only includes website and digital journalism access, can maintain that subscription if they wish.
Follow the money: All Access is launching first in the U.S. for $6.99 per month or $69.99 annually.
- Eventually, Thompson said, the company plans to integrate content and shows from its CNN en Español cable network and expand the service internationally.
- The company is exploring possible ways to bundle its subscription with other apps it's working on like CNN Weather.
- If CNN decides to paywall CNN Weather and/or other future lifestyle-adjacent news apps, that could lead to a suite of products the company could bundle alongside the core news offering, Thompson said.
Reality check: One reason CNN is able to offer a more cable-like experience is because of the way the pay-TV industry has evolved in the past few years.
- Earlier in the streaming era, pay-TV providers were reluctant to allow content companies to offer their cable content to consumers directly, fearing it would cannibalize their cable bundle products.
- Back in 2022, CNN wasn't able to offer as much of its cable content to paying subscribers without disrupting existing distribution agreements with its pay-TV providers.
- Today, most pay-TV providers are eyeing ways to work with content companies to offer cable subscribers a way to log into these new services at no extra charge.
- Both ESPN and Fox Corp. have introduced new streaming services recently that offer cable subscribers the ability to authenticate their new streamers for free with their cable subscriptions.
Zoom out: The pay-TV provider challenge is in some ways unique to CNN, because most of its major cable and broadcast news rivals offer alternative live news shows for free via ad-supported networks.
- But for CNN, its digital audience is so big that trying to upsell some of those users to a paid environment makes sense.
- "We have obviously thought carefully about the price points, and in particular wanting to pitch the All Access subscription tier at a point where it made economic sense compared to many other subscriptions, not just streaming services, but other news subscriptions," Thompson says.
The big picture: The rollout of All Access comes as CNN's corporate parent Warner Bros. Discovery undergoes a strategic review of assets, including a possible sale.
- WBD previously announced a plan to split the company into two publicly traded companies, parting its television networks from its streaming business. It may still pursue that plan.
- Asked about a possible corporate shuffle Thompson says, "The best thing for CNN right now is to effectively develop and execute a strategy about finding new digital audiences for our great journalism — be it video-based TV-like journalism, be it specially made VOD journalism, be it text journalism."
- "I can't think of any future corporate outcome where it's not useful to be able to show how this organization is thinking about its future and how it's mobilizing effectively to deliver that feature perfect."
Disclosure: The author is a paid contributor to CNN.
