CNN plans to roll out a “suite” of digital subscription services as part of a wide-ranging overhaul aimed at arresting the decline of a traditional TV business facing new pressure as Donald Trump’s administration takes aim at media outlets it perceives as unfriendly.
Mark Thompson, who was appointed chief executive 18 months ago to turn CNN around, told the Financial Times the media group would debut at least one streaming product this year, with one or more expected in 2026.
Thompson hopes to build a digital subscription business at CNN that will generate more than $1bn in annual revenue by 2030. CNN made $1.7bn in operating revenue last year, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence estimates.
CNN’s parent company Warner Bros Discovery has given Thompson more than $70mn to execute his turnaround at the TV channel, which has seen little of the “Trump bump” experienced by rivals such as Fox News.
Thompson described the launch this year as a “non-news digital product, though it might be heavy in information”, initially in the US before taking it to customers around the world. The service is expected to have more features and lifestyle content.
“We’re beginning to build out a suite of digital products, principally with a subscription thesis,” he said, adding that attempts to introduce a paywall for some of CNN’s online content were ahead of target while still being “early days”.
“I don’t think this stuff is easy. Our entire industry is going through a revolution. The landscape is continuing to go through the stresses and strains of an enormous disruption of audiences and of the media generally.”
Launched in 1980, CNN was America’s first 24-hour TV news channel and quickly became hugely popular. But the traditional cable business is now under threat as people turn to digital options.
“We want to find a range of ways of meeting different audience needs and demands. And I’m a firm believer that portfolios have a number of quite powerful advantages, that you can maximise the way you meet people’s needs in a more precise way,” Thompson said in CNN’s New York office.
“We’ve got some quite interesting ideas about things which are not conventional television, but which will be part of the offer as well as the core news.”
Thompson was previously chief executive of The New York Times, where he also helped oversee a digital transformation, building a subscription business based on news, cooking and games that has improved the newspaper’s fortunes.
CNN insiders expect him to use a similar playbook, with a range of services for subscribers outside core news in lifestyle and entertainment.
CNN has already added a pay wall to some stories on its website last year. Thompson said it was “early days” to judge the success of the move but that the “model is growing ahead of the plan . . . we’re learning from our subscribers about patterns of consumption. That’s step one”.
A previous iteration of a subscription streaming service CNN+ was quickly killed off when WarnerMedia merged with Discovery in 2022.
CNN’s total viewers in the US shrank by about 8 per cent in the first three months of the year despite the fire hose of news generated by Trump’s return to the White House, while right-leaning rival Fox jumped 48 per cent, according to Nielsen figures.
CNN insiders say its audiences have been hit by some Democrat viewers switching away from news altogether. Thompson has told staff CNN’s share of the cable audience has increased compared with 10 and 20 years ago, but that the “pie” overall is getting smaller for linear cable television as more viewers switch to digital alternatives.
Thompson told the FT that it “tells you a bit about the commentary about news in this country, that standard for objective news is sometimes seen as a strategic weakness”.
He added: “I ultimately believe that standing for a global news broadcast is a competitive advantage, not always a tactical advantage in a given moment in time.”
Since taking office Trump has repeatedly attacked media outlets including CNN. In a recent speech he accused the broadcaster, along with MSNBC, of writing “97.6 per cent bad about me” and of being a “political arm of the Democratic party”, adding that “in my opinion, they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal”.
The White House has taken a number of actions seen as part of a war on independent media, including controlling access to its press room. It has restricted the Associated Press from access to the Oval Office and Air Force One after the wire agency refused to use the name “Gulf of America” instead of Gulf of Mexico. Journalists at Voice of America have been put on administrative leave after Trump shut the US Agency for Global Media.
Thompson said he “strongly” believed that AP should be allowed to continue to report “extensively and as a valuable partner”, and that “a self-organising pool of people covering Washington DC, and entities like the White House Correspondents’ Association, are genuinely useful in co-ordinating coverage”.
He said CNN’s job was “to report on the government of the day in whichever country it is” in a way that “is accurate, is fair-minded, doesn’t labour under its own prejudices or biases, and doesn’t shy [away] from holding power to account”.
However, he added, “we shouldn’t slip into the idea that part of our job is to oppose political forces as such. Our job is to cover the political contest, rather than to head into the ring and start throwing punches ourselves.”
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