90 Day Fiancé & CNN+ Meet on a Spreadsheet

For media conglomerates with a one formula fits all focus on earnings, broadcast journalism's blended value breaks its algorithm

After reading this excellent breakdown of Warner Bros. Discovery's vision for its road ahead, I offer my thoughts about how its navigation is off-course because it’s reading the map wrong.

Given the hyperfocused, bottomline-based decision-making that rules all publicly traded firms, Warner Bros. Discovery switching off CNN+ was not terribly surprising. But it was a missed opportunity. Since that announcement, I have wondered if reworking the strategy for CNN+, and its expectations of it—more balanced financial risks with a goal to attract loyal audiences—would have made it successful. Or at a minimum, if viewing its success through a different prism would have. What if an approach that scaled back its initial scope and repositioned it as an enhanced streaming version of the cable network—that offered quality original programming, which is valued by its core market—resulted in it defining the brand? We'll never know. Because it chose a reality show about rushed marriages to hang its reputation on, squandering a chance to signal its soul, support its strategy, and be a superior streaming service for subscribers.

David Zaslav, President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery spoke to the inherent advantage CNN has with its economies of scale by saying, "news is scalable." With that statement, he made an even stronger case for CNN+ to stay the course. After all, it was swimming in sunk costs and since its broadcast brother has amortized investments abound, through its network and human capital, rethinking its CNN+ menu—opposed to deleting it—would have been more than wise. But when ARPU (average revenue per unit) is the determining lens used for assessing value—and each product-line is quantitatively weighed equally—in this age of media, CNN+’s livelihood was doomed from the onset. And that is unfortunate. Because it also disturbed the livelihoods of hundreds of its employees, and their families, who were summarily dismissed like loaves of unbought bread. That part feels soulless.

Producing news costs money, especially quality programming; it's a hard reality of managing a news operation. The inputs are powered by smart and skilled people that are worthy of their wages, the equipment—its means of production—is expensive, and its outputs—the unit ​production costs—are inconsistent due to many complicating factors. Beyond salaries and real estate, the fixed costs of producing news are few and its variable costs are volatile. That makes its economics ​tricky to navigate.

News, as a service and public good, is worthy of more columns of value than rate of return. While honoring its shareholder responsibilities, a media conglomerate should also enummerate a news product's goodwill to its stakeholders and hold that in high regard. That blended score, while maybe not encapsulated in economic terms directly, would provide a framework of thinking that defines a company's broader mission and authority, more than only its earnings per share can. No question, 90 Day Fiancé has a big audience, high margins, and a simple production process. But Warner Bros. Discovery leaning on that product to bolster its credibility and espouse excellence to its shareholders is a mistake. It misses a massive opportunity in positioning itself as more than just a media company that operates efficiently and sells advertising. It would still be conveying its success in connecting brands to desired demographics, but, more importantly, signaling superiority through its principles. That element of its identity is valuable from both an investor's perspective and a viewer's. That's how you define the soul of the brand: walking the walk and talking the talk.

If its goal for the CNN unit is to exploit a perceived unmet market for objective news, it should get behind the effort—which would also strengthen its corporate identity—by putting aside the anticipated revenue projections as most critical and invest in programming that aligns with that desire and demonstrates its intended position. That would offer a distinguishing line item along its media vertical spreadsheet and augment its revenue results qualitatively. As an example, Bill Weir's former CNN show, The Wonder List is an obvious example of that sweetspot: it boasted unrivaled cinematic quality and patience in production, it had a mission, took audiences to places that are disappearing due to climate change, it had a soul by telling stories that explained the world and the human experience. For CNN, it took bravery to budget a series that honored excellence over an Excel spreadsheet. CNN chose to invest in unique storytelling with high quality production elements. For those fortunate to watch the series, it was simply the best CNN has offered, enhancing its goodwill and aligning with its objective to disseminate information. But if ARPU determined whether to greenlight it or not, it likely wouldn't have made it through the intersection. But still, the previous executives who dreamed up CNN+ decided to bring it back for a fourth season. And yet, CNN+ didn’t even make it half way into spring. A missed opportunity indeed.

Quality news programming, whether broadcast or streaming, should be evaluated through a different standard than others in Warner Bros. Discovery's closet of curated content. Historically, news has operated as a public service, but in recent years has been scrutinized, scraped, and squeezed for more appeasing profit margins. Instead of informing viewers, it’s selling them. Instead of maintaining objectivity, it's shilling its parent company's latest project from a sibling network. Instead of focusing on excellence, it’s foaming about Excel. Given the variety of revenue streams within its ecosystem, the one that offers more than just financial returns should be prized as highly as, or even higher than, all others.

These unrealized gains exist, but are presently paralyzed by praising profit percentages. Promoting its news product with pride is a promising proposition for Warner Bros. Discovery. But evaluating each revenue stream with an equal equation won't validate its vision, verify its value, nor does it serve shareholder sentiment. Alliteration aside, each broadcast network has staked its political position to garner the highest ratings and ad rates. But this is where news has truly failed, it is what has shifted it from a public service to disservice. It’s now an echo-chamber. It’s created an addictive product that has vacuumed perspectives and drawn clear lines. It has empowered people to know they’re right about everything they believe and yet never synthesize a news report for its earnest objectivity, because that’s no longer a thing. But that thing, is desired and highly valued. It’s sought and searched for by viewers. It’s desired by those that recall that the spirit of broadcast news wasn’t conflating reporting with punditry. It was reporting stories, presenting facts, and letting the audience decide. It was not a highly profitable industry, but it gave reputation as reward. For today’s media conglomerates, that reward is unseen.

If truly aspiring to be dead center, Warner Bros. Discovery should do so boldly. Stake the claim of journalism's best. Stake the claim as the company willing to invest in storytelling that’s truthful and valued. Stake the claim by bolstering the brand with meaning. With truth. With reality. But real reality. Not the 90 Day Fiancé kind.

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