As pay TV revenues diminish, CNN puts a paywall on its website

CNN has long had one of the most visited news websites in the world. Starting Tuesday, users are going to have to pay for it.

The Warner Bros. Discovery-owned news operation is putting a paywall on CNN.com, requiring U.S. users to pay $3.99 for access or a discounted rate of $29.99 a year. The subscription will provide unlimited usage of the site, which is visited by 150 million people globally each month.

Users will be asked to subscribe after accessing a number of free stories, according to an internal memo from Alex MacCallum, executive vice president, digital products and services for CNN.

CNN’s reason for the move is rooted in the problems that plague all of traditional television. Consumers are spending more time with online video and canceling their traditional pay TV subscriptions. Revenues from cable and satellite subscribers are declining as cord-cutting continues at a steady pace each year. The trend, along with a decline in ratings, has put pressure on CNN’s profit margins in recent years.

Whether consumers will pay for a product they have used for free over the years will be test. Mark Thompson, who took over as CNN chairman last year, turned the New York Times into a successful digital subscription site during his tenure at that company.

MacCallum’s memo said subscribers “will receive benefits like exclusive election features, original documentaries, a curated daily selection of our most distinctive journalism, and fewer digital ads.” CNN is currently developing video content with some of its talent designed to be behind the paywall on the site, according to people familiar with the plans.

The launch of the subscriber plan comes more than a year after CNN’s false start into the streaming marketplace. The network launched CNN+ last year with a slate of original programs hosted by big-name talent at the network. The costly venture was shuttered days after its launch once Warner Bros. Discovery took ownership of the network in 2022.

CNN has created a stream of news programming for its parent company’s Max platform.

CNN has been running behind Fox News and MSNBC in the Nielsen ratings. But all cable networks face an existential threat from cord-cutting as they are losing revenues and their ability to reach consumers through television. The carriage agreements with pay TV providers prevent the news networks from replicating their channels for a direct-to-consumer offering.

Fox News has a subscription service called Fox Nation, which offers documentary and lifestyle programming aimed at its conservative-leaning audience. The service does offer some Fox News programs from the previous day on a video-on-demand basis.