After People Refuse to Watch it for Free, CNN to Charge $70 to Watch It
What could go wrong?
October 17, 2025 by Daniel Greenfield 9 Comments
As the ancient proverb says, “if at first you don’t succeed at doing the idiotic thing you were trying to do, raise the price and try to do it all over again.”
CNN’s effort to launch CNN+, a paid streaming service, at a time when its core ratings are crashing is confusing observers who wonder why the news network thinks people will pay for CNN when they won’t even watch it for free.
CNN President Jeff Zucker billed CNN+ as being for “CNN superfans, news junkies and fans of quality non-fiction programming.”
Spoiler alert: CNN superfans are almost as real as Bigfoot and less likely to be spotted in the wild.
CNN charged $2.99 a month for CNN+ which launched in March of 2022, at a cost of $300 million, and shut down in April 2022, at a cost of $300 million.
Now let’s do it all over again but charge even more.
The news network announced Thursday its “All Access” subscription will launch in the U.S. on October 28 and cost $6.99 per month or $69.99 annually.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/after-people-refuse-to-watch-it-for-free-cnn-to-charge-70-to-watch-it/