This week, the news broadcasting world witnessed the abrupt demise of a highly-touted startup streaming service and the rambunctious arrival of a brash new player. But will TalkTV, the latest endeavor from News Corp (NASDAQ:NWS) (NASDAQ:NWSA) founder Rupert Murdoch be able to flourish in a manner that eluded the ill-fated CNN+?
An Unexpected Nosedive: CNN+ launched in March with great fanfare, with a particular focus on the arrival of longtime Fox News host Chris Wallace, National Public Radio host Audie Cornish, MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt and ex-ESPN personality Jemele Hill among its primary talent.
However, the streamer was in the wrong place and at the wrong time. The U.S. streaming market’s oversaturation did not seem to warrant another service — CNN+ was barely attracting 10,000 viewers at any given time, according to a New York Times report sourced from two unnamed “people familiar with the numbers, who were not authorized to speak publicly.”
CNN+ was launched on March 29 as the ownership of CNN was being transferred from AT&T’s (NYSE:T) WarnerMedia to Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD), which was created by the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery.
According to the Times report, David Zaslav, the CEO of Discovery, was not enthusiastic about CNN+ as a standalone entity and wanted its contents merged with Discovery+ and HBO Max into a single service. There was also the question of expense — a CNN was budgeting more than $1 billion for CNN+ over the next four years, but Discovery was carrying a $55 billion debt load from the WarnerMedia merger.
The Times obtained a recording of Chris Licht, the incoming CNN president, informing the company’s workforce of the decision to terminate CNN+ on April 30 by comparing the launch of CNN+ to a house being constructed without any input from its intended owner.
“Then the new owner came in and said: ‘What a beautiful house! But I need an apartment,’” he said. “And that doesn’t take anything away from this beautiful house you built.”
And, truth be told, the CNN+ programming was not exactly must-see viewing. With all-original productions like “Jake Tapper’s Book Club,” “Parental Guidance with Anderson Cooper” and “The Don Lemon Show,” viewers were either paying for rather fluffy talk shows or news conversations they could find on CNN — but CNN+ did not rebroadcast CNN’s news coverage, which put it at a content disadvantage.
As for the star power recruited for the startup, Wallace’s show had little luck snagging headline-hogging guests — White House press secretary Jen Psaki might have been his prominent scoop — and the shows starring Cornish and Hill weren’t going to be ready until May. None of the service's programming generated a blip of headline-grabbing attention.
The Times reported that J.B. Perrette, Discovery’s global head of streaming, joined Licht in announcing the service’s shutdown by citing tweets that referred to the new offering as “CNN-”
Another Approach: In comparison, Murdoch’s TalkTV is starting off with very different footing. This endeavor is not being offered as a streaming service, but rather as a free U.K. television channel — a great strategy, considering many U.K. households have been dropping their streaming subscriptions amid the country’s economic tumult.
And unlike the anodyne talent line-up on CNN+, Talk TV is eager for provocation — especially with star personality Piers Morgan, a one-time CNN anchor who was last seen marching off a live broadcast of ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” following a controversy around his comments on Meghan Markle’s mental health.
Morgan’s program “Uncensored with Piers Morgan” will be simulcast across the Atlantic on the Fox Nation streaming service, and its April 25 premiere episode has already attracted attention — clips of Morgan’s first guest, former President Donald Trump, were edited in a manner that showed an agitated and visibly perspiring Trump losing patience with Morgan’s questioning and cutting off the interview while it was in motion.
What can Morgan — and TalkTV, for that matter — do for an encore? Aside from the Trump interview, TalkTV doesn’t appear to be aiming for transatlantic resonance. Except for a new talk show hosted by Sharon Osbourne, the channel’s on-air talent is populated by British journalists with no name recognition in the U.S. (There has been no announcement that Osbourne’s show will also be on Fox Nation.)
Furthermore, original programming with initially be limited to the one-hour shows hosted by Morgan and Osbourne plus a political talk show on U.K. issues — the remainder of the broadcast will be a televised version of talkRADIO, another Murdoch news entity.
Benzinga's Take: CNN+ tried to carve a brand-new niche as a streaming news service while TalkTV is competing against multiple news channels in the U.K. for viewership. When it comes to gaining and maintaining leadership in this precarious market, perhaps Morgan summed it up best: “One day you’re cock of the walk, the next a feather duster.”
Photo: Screenshot of former President Donald Trump and Piers Morgan from the April 25 debut episode of Morgan's new TalkTV show "Uncensored with Piers Morgan."
