CNN CEO Considering Sub Stream

CNN's new head honcho Mark Thompson is thinking about re-launching some form of a subscription service 18 months after CNN+ went down in flames.

Thompson, who joined CNN in October after a decade-long run at the New York Times, arrived in the fall and made no secret of the fact that he felt the company would need to work hard to catapult itself into the media landscape of the future.

Last week, according to The Wall Street Journal, a memo circulated across the company explaining that CNN will soon combine all facets of its newsgathering apparatus into one unit that will feed into the company's TV, streaming and digital platforms. 

In an interview with the Journal, Thompson indicated he is interested in exploring subscriptions that give users access to video news on their phones.

Millions and millions of dollars were pumped into CNN+ before it was unceremoniously shut down by the new Warner Bros. Discovery bosses, leaving hundreds of employees without jobs and the network in a serious morale deficit.

If CNN 'can figure out a way of doing that and make sure it’s a high quality, differentiated product,' Thompson said, then users will be okay with forking over a few extra dollars a month for it.

'I’m not even sure that subscription is the right pathway for CNN,' said Thompson. 'But I do think we need to start experimenting and exploring in the broader sense direct-to-consumer relationships and potentially direct-to-consumer paying relationships.'

The US Daily Mail reports the smartphone, he argued, is where most people now get their news, and most consumption occurs in the morning hours as opposed to the more traditional evening prime time slots.

The news network has every motivation to expand into whatever new mediums of news delivery are out there because it is losing the traditional ratings game badly.

CNN currently attracts about half the prime-time viewers of MSNBC, which is the country's No. 2 rated news network, and about one-third of Fox News' viewership, which has consistently ranked as the No. 1 network in the nation for the past many years.