This story coming from Axios shows just how incredibly delusional CNN management was when they decided to go all-in on the CNN+ subscription model.
CNN believed that there would be around 30 million "superfans" willing to pay big bucks to watch CNN+, even though there aren't that many people who watch it for free.
These guys really think a lot of themselves.
They pitched CNN+ as a flipping money-making machine!
They seriously bought the idea that CNN+ could become more profitable than CNN in under 10 years.
They also thought that in that same time frame they could gain 30 million(!!!) subscribers.
Reminder, upon launch CNN+ actually only had about 150,000 subscribers and 10,000 daily viewers. Just... a few million below initial projections.
They expected 29 million "superfans", 24 million "news and nonfiction" video on demand subscribers, and 36 million "global news consumers."
Can you say "delusional"?
Goodness gracious, I'm sure they're glad they were able to dump Jeff Zucker now.
What a nightmare.
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