In a joint press statement issued by CNN and Snapchat, the media house announced plans to kill off ‘The Update’ barely four months after launch.
‘The Update’ as the special edition of CNN news is called, was specifically designed to be viewed on Snapchat with its vertical video format. However the shows shown therein were not produced purposely for Snapchat, neither does it have dedicated anchors. Rather, it featured news curated from a selection of the regular CNN’s reporting, which are then edited to video running for about 3 minutes long.
The new network is killing The Update simply because it can see enough revenue stream to make the platform profitable. CNN had been one of Snapchat’s launch partners when the social media launched Discover; a platform that featured licensed fee content.
However Snapchat is soon doing away with the fees, which means the only way to monetize the platform is via ads.
This development has made CNN to rethink about going into the Snapchat platform, and after doing its math, the network has decided The Update will not run profitably. Thus the decision to pull the plug on it.
A joint press statement by the two companies reads in part:
“Snap and CNN have built a great partnership over the years and our teams have enormous admiration for each other. We plan to keep working together and mutually decided to hit pause as we explore the best opportunities for doing that. Our relationship will very much be continuing.”