CNN boss Mark Thompson. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery)
CNN is on the precipice of taking its first step onto the web-subscriptions battlefield.
The Mark Thompson-led news outlet will, within days, erect a metered paywall on its highly trafficked website, endeavoring to monetize its large digital audience for the first time in the website's nearly three-decade history. The New York Times' Ben Mullin, who broke the news Thursday morning, reported that subscriptions are expected to be inexpensive at the outset as leadership experiments and tinkers with various ideas.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the very future of CNN rests on whether Thompson and his digital chief, Alex MacCallum, can successfully persuade millions of people to pay it for various subscription products. With the linear television model quickly disintegrating, CNN and other networks will need to break open new revenue streams, and quickly. One of those streams for CNN will be a subscription to its core news website, though surely streaming and other offerings will factor into a larger package at some point down the line.
But filling the hole left behind by the linear television model with such subscriptions will be a Herculean task…
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