CNN ignores the messages of the marketplace when they are already heard.
Imagine yourself as a restaurant manager facing a challenging task with a particular food item. You offer a range of accompaniments to accompany your meals, but there is one thing you aren’t seeing. You notice that all your potatoes in your walk-in freezer are starting to go bad. This is because very few people order potatoes as a side dish. What can you do to address this problem?
A pile of expired potatoes is not something a restauranteur would consider. This is the exact decision made in CNN’s Atlanta office. Brian Stelter (In-House Media Guru) will host a new daily program for the upcoming CNN subscription.
CNN+ is the new streaming platform that CNN will be rolling out in March. Many people have been wondering about this package. CNN has lost viewers at a shocking rate over the past year. All news networks saw viewership decline following the election. However, Fox News has generally recovered, while MSNBC has seen its curve flatten, with some exceptions seeing ratings rise.
CNN has been in constant decline and is now mired in scandals as it attempts to launch a new venture. Many have asked the question, “How can they expect to draw significant numbers of paid viewers if people keep turning away from their FREE product?” !
This paradox is illustrated in Stelter’s decision to offer Stelter a daily platform. Stelter’s Sunday program Reliable Sources has been a consistent source of viewer erosion. Brian will be competing against Howie Kurtz, Fox News’ own program Media Buzz, in his 11 AM time slot. Howie has more than doubled Stelter’s audience.
This is made even more apparent when you look at Brian Stelter’s own promotion for the new venture. Brian Stelter managed to subvert the situation when he announced his daily program in Reliable Sources’ newsletter.
The paid subscription to the program will look similar to the newsletter, Sunday program, and podcast, all of which Stelter provides for no charge. The incentive to subscribe is…what? Given the increasing apathy associated with those offerings, CNN believes that providing viewers with more content will be a draw.
The best thing for the network would be to make any available, other than what they broadcast each day. Since the beginning, viewers have been slowly leaving CNN midway. It is not clear why. This is the way the outlet thinks. Stelter responded to the Zucker ouster by saying, ” We’re not going anywhere!”
He didn’t mean it in the context of a car that had broken down along the side of the road, but that is what the network’s reality is right now.
After steering the network into an Iceberg and watching the ratings continue to drop, Jeff Zucker was recently let go. Stelter stated that it would be best to keep the failing format. CNN spent a whole year obsessing about January 6 and saw people blame the GOP decreasing, while it continued to carry the Big Lie narrative for the majority of the time. The script has been ignored by voters, and viewers moved on to other outlets after all the Trump attacks and Joe Biden defenses.
CNN, you are so sure that if we believe that giving us more of the spoiled fare and charging a premium if we don’t want it, then let’s make that new menu. I believe reservations won’t be necessary to get a table on the new paid platform.
