Warner Bros. Discovery has laid off CNN’s chief financial officer Brad Ferrer as part of a broader finance team restructuring in the wake of the slow launch of CNN+, according to a new report.
Warner Bros. Discovery has also paused all external marketing spend for the new streaming service, Axios reported. Other high-level positions at WarnerMedia in varying departments are likely to be eliminated to cut costs and streamline leadership as Discovery considers what to do with CNN+ moving forward, the report says. Discovery recently merged with CNN’s parent company, WarnerMedia.
Roughly $300 million has been spent and hundreds of jobs have been created to support CNN+, which has brought in just 150,000 subscribers so far. CNN+ executives were initially hoping to attract 2 million subscribers in the first year and 15 to 18 million over four years, the report adds. CNN also believed CNN+ could become profitable in four years by investing $1 billion into the service.
While CNN executives think the launch has been successful, Discovery executives have been disappointed and are frustrated that the service launched, the report says. Discovery executives wish CNN would have waited to launch the streaming service until after the merger with WarnerMedia was complete for an easier alignment with Discovery’s goals.
Warner Bros. Discovery wants to eventually build one cohesive service around HBO Max, rather than offering several niche services, according to Axios. The executives are weighing the possibility of including some CNN+ content on CNN’s app for free and supported by ads, while other CNN+ programming could find a home on HBO Max.
Discovery executives want to return CNN to a hard-news style of journalism, shifting away from the soft news content that has been featured on CNN+ so far, according to the report. One source told Axios executives are willing to give up some of CNN’s short-term profit growth from linear TV ads to make sure the network focuses on hard news over ratings.