CNN CEO Mark Thompson has announced plans for a new streaming service that would be available globally.
The details came in a memo to staff that also detailed plans to cut 6 percent of jobs, or about 200 people.
Thompson said that CNN Max, currently part of Discovery Warner Bros’ Max platform had been a “tremendous resource”.
“We have been able to get our journalism and storytelling content in front of Max’s 110 million global subscribers and test and learn to see what programming a mass streaming audience engages with, spends time with, and returns time and time again to the service to consume. We’ll continue to have a strong presence on Max, but we also believe it is not a complete answer to the future of the great linear CNN experience,” he said.
The new service would allow subscribers “to stream news programming from us on any device they choose”.
It is three years since the merger of Warner Bros and Discovery led CNN to shut its original streaming service, CNN Plus, after just a month.
“It’s early days but we’ve already established that there’s immense demand for it not just in America but across much of the world,” Thompson wrote in the memo.
While 200 people are expected to be let go, there will also be 100 new roles created as part of a $70 million investment from Warner Bros. Discovery.
“The changes we’re announcing today are part of an ongoing response by this great news organisation to profound and irreversible shifts in the way audiences in America and around the world consume news,” said Thompson.
CNN will pivot is newsroom into a digital first operation with a refreshed website and a new lifestyle-oriented digital product.
“Our objective is a simple one: to shift CNN’s gravity towards the platforms and products where the audience themselves are shifting and, by doing that, to secure CNN’s future as one of the world’s greatest news organizations,” Thompson said.
There will be significant changes to the broadcast schedule with Wolf Blitzer moving to an earlier 10am ET slot, replacing Jim Acosta, who while assessing whether midnight is a great time for US audiences might consider that it is primetime in Europe.
