As the end date of CNN+ approaches, there are more signs that production at the streaming service is steadily slowing down.
The latest news is from Variety’s Brian Steinberg, who tweeted that Wolf Blitzer’s evening news show The Newscast will have its last original showing later tonight (April 27).
This is significant because this will also be the last daily show produced for the streaming service. Other daily live productions had already wrapped up, including Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources and Kasie Hunt’s The Source, both of which ended last Friday (April 22).
The company sent out an email to CNN+ subscribers Wednesday afternoon saying, “CNN+ streaming will come to an end on April 28, 2022. If you purchased your subscription directly from us, we will be providing a full refund for your subscription fee back to your original CNN+ payment method by May 28, 2022. If you purchased your subscription via a third party, such as Apple, Google, Roku, or Amazon, that third party will process a full refund of your subscription fee in accordance with their respective refund policies and timelines. You can confirm the details of those refunds directly with the applicable third-party app store provider.”
It’s been a tough month for the folks at CNN+. The service launched with great promise on March 29, believing that it was moving CNN into the streaming era. The service featured 8-12 live daily shows, new CNN+ Original Series and a library of more than 1,000 hours of programming from the CNN Original Series and CNN Films teams.
The launch happened at the most inopportune time as CNN—and the entire WarnerMedia clan went through a corporate leadership change and ownership. They now became part of the Warner Bros. Discovery family.
Once the new bosses from Discovery settled in, they took a look at what they had in CNN+ and decided it was better to shut it down than proceed with it—as it did not align with their mission of combining all of their content into one streaming service.
CNN+’s last day is April 30, and according to Chris Licht, CNN’s soon-to-be CEO and chairman, “all CNN+ employees will continue to be paid and receive benefits for the next 90 days to explore opportunities at CNN, CNN Digital,—and elsewhere in the Warner Bros. Discovery family.”