Media

‘It’s Too Early To Know If’ CNN+ A Failure, Brian Stelter Says After CNN+ Shuts Down And Loses Millions Of Dollars

CNN's Brian Stelter discusses the end of CNN+ Friday [Twitter Screenshot Nicholas Fondacar]

[Twitter Screenshot Nicholas Fondacar]

Brianna Lyman News and Commentary Writer
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CNN’s Brian Stelter seems to be in extreme denial over the cancellation of CNN+, saying Friday they may never know whether CNN+ was actually a failure since it was so short-lived.

“Have you seen anything like this happen before, in the media business?” Stelter asked Puck News author Matthew Belloni on CNN+’s “Reliable Sources Daily.”

“No, and first of all, I think I’m making history now, I’ve never been on a program talking about the demise of that program,” Belloni joked. (RELATED: Gutfeld Can’t Stop Making Fun Of Chris Wallace Now That CNN+ Went Belly Up)

“Well, we probably have more viewers now than ever before because there’s so much curiosity. Let me try out a theory on you now, which is: it’s too early to know if this product, if this service was a success or a failure,” Stelter said.

“You’ve got all the haters today saying this thing was a failure. I don’t know if we can even ever assess that, because it just simply didn’t have enough time because of the management’s change in direction,” he continued. “And at the end of the day if you buy something, if you buy a giant media company, you get to do whatever you want with it.”

CNN+ announced Thursday it would be shutting down after launching in late March, with operations set to end April 30. The platform struggled with low subscription numbers and was reportedly slated to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in investments and projects. Nearly $300 million had been spent on the service, coming out to a roughly $9,375,000 per day loss, according to Axios.