CNN Plans to Offer Paywall For Digital News

Jeff Zucker, a veteran television executive who once warned that the TV business couldn’t afford to trade “analog dollars for digital pennies,” is now embracing online publishing as central to CNN’s model, reports The Wall Street Journal.

After investing in digital “verticals,” or distinct web brands, focused on business and politics and acquiring an online-video startup, CNN is gearing up for another big step: the launch of tiered subscription offerings for its digital news business as early as the second quarter of next year.

A proposed premium offering will give subscribers access to special content on topic-specific verticals, such as CNN Money and CNN Politics, built around network personalities. A second option will provide additional, though less specialized, content across all of CNN’s sites. Pricing hasn’t been finalized.

The move is part of a broader five-year plan to develop new revenue streams and reach $1 billion in digital revenue by 2022. CNN’s digital arm expects to pull in $370 million this year, according to a person familiar with its financials.

“We have to find more subscription products,” Mr. Zucker said in an interview. “We have to experiment with e-commerce. And I think we have to find ways to monetize mobile traffic.”

CNN Digital currently makes most of its money on ads that run before videos.

Convincing users to pay for news won’t be easy. Even more challenging will be making headway in the already cutthroat online-ad business, which is dominated by Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.