Sell!

PE and the future of CNN.

Editor’s Note: We lost internet service for about 14 hours yesterday and earlier this morning, so the Weekend Edition of News Items will be distributed tomorrow.

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In April of 2022, senior management at Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD) shut down CNN+, CNN’s bespoke news streaming service, that senior management at CNN had inexplicably decided represented the future of the company.

At the time of launch, CNN (and therefore WBD) had already sunk tens of millions of dollars into the project. The longer-term plan called for the investment of more than $1 billion over 4 years.

The launch of CNN+ was marked by a lavish “gala” on the 101st floor of a mid-town Manhattan skyscraper, that offered what The New York Times described as a constellation of CNN “stars” and “dizzying views of the Manhattan skyline.”

Three weeks later, CNN+ was shut down, for good. CNN executives were shocked. They may have been the only ones who were.