The New York Times
CNN laid off its four Web anchors on Thursday and said it had stopped producing continuous live video for CNN.com, curtailing one of the Internets biggest news experiments.
The company, a unit of Time Warner, also said it was making new investments in on-demand video. CNN.com established a broadband channel in 2005, first as a subscription site and then as a free advertiser-supported service. At its center was a live-anchored newscast from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. each weekday that often resembled a minor league rendition of CNN on television, complete with many of the same correspondents and guests. The programming was “very ambitious and very expensive,” said Andy Plesser, who analyzes online news sites as the executive producer of Beet.TV.
CNN has seen substantial revenue gains from online video advertising this year, but company officials concluded recently that the live-anchored Webcasts were not cost-effective. More…