As conservatives were quick to point out months ago, the writing was on the wall for the eventual failure of the CNN+ paid streaming service well before it officially launched at the end of March. After all, the ratings for CNN itself were in a freefall – still are, in fact, with no end in sight. So how could they have realistically expected to be successful in trying to get consumers excited enough about their (questionable) content that people would actually start paying for monthly subscriptions to a supposedly more upscale version of it?
The answer was they couldn’t have realistically expected it, which may be why they were practically giving away subscriptions at launchtime. Perhaps the higher-ups at the network and their parent company were sharing tokes when the idea was formed. I dunno. In any event, as we reported earlier, the announcement was made to CNN staffers Thursday afternoon that CNN+ would be shutting down at the end of April after a mere month in operation.
With this news came some understandable dunking on some of CNN+’s hosts like media hall monitor Brian Stelter, who from what I could see was providing the exact same type of stale “Fox News sucks” “Ron DeSantis is the enemy” blather on CNN+ that one regularly gets from him and his colleagues on the free side.
There were also a lot of swipes taken at Chris Wallace, who was considered the “big star” of CNN+, and who The Usual Suspects at CNN were gloating over when it was revealed that he had left his longtime perch at Fox News to work for what amounted to Fox News viewers as “The Enemy.”
Though Wallace, too, hinted even before his big debut that he also knew the writing was on the wall, he soldiered on perhaps thinking he and he alone could rescue the troubled service as it struggled mightily to gain traction.
In the end, he couldn’t, and in the epic trolls of epic trolls, his former employer made sure to get their own digs in on Wallace and some of Fox News’ more prominent haters at the purported “news” network with the story they filed on the fall of CNN+:
Fox News app is unmatched pic.twitter.com/k88BrN5K6m
— Abigail Marone 🇺🇸 (@abigailmarone) April 21, 2022
Popular Fox News host Greg Gutfeld also got in some punches:
“The Democratic bench is thinner than Chris Wallace’s demo reel on CNN+. Thanks. I just needed to get that in there.”
– @greggutfeld on @TheFive— johnny dollar (@johnnydollar01) April 21, 2022
No doubt more will be forthcoming from the opinion side tonight via Tucker Carlson and all the rest.
All of that said, some are speculating that there was more at play behind the shutting down of CNN+ beyond their patented inability to attract large viewing audiences. This should sound awfully familiar:
— Leeeeeroy Jennnnnkins!!!! (@jer2911tx) April 21, 2022
Considering CNN was long dubbed the “Clinton News Network” by media critics due to their loyal devotion to Bill and Hillary back in the day, that would be something else if true, wouldn’t it? We’ll keep you posted if we can get independent confirmation. 😉
Flashback–>> LOL: CNN+ ‘Help’ Twitter Account Proves Far More Entertaining Than Actual Streaming Service
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