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Gutfeld, Carlson Mock Chris Wallace, Laugh At Failure Of CNN’s Streaming Service

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Greg Gutfeld are dancing on the grave of CNN+, the streaming service of competitor CNN, and former Fox News host Chris Wallace.

On a recent episode of “The Five” Carlson and Gutfeld trumpeted the success of the Fox News streaming service Fox Nation and quipped about hiring Wallace to come back to Fox News for that.

“Now that CNN+ is defunct, has Fox Nation considered rehiring Chris Wallace?” Gutfeld said to Carlson.

“We could probably get him at a discount,” he said sarcastically. “And I’ve seen that he interviews a lot of very interesting people?”

“We had a meeting about him this morning in my office,” Carlson quipped. “I was like ‘No he just failed.”

“One of my producers goes, ‘you know he’s Mike Wallace’s son?’” Carlson said while laughing. “Done! He’s got to be good.”

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CNN+, has been scrapped after less than a month and insiders are breaking their silence on the doomed platform.

“I defy you to find any reasonable person who ever believed that viewers would pay extra money for the dregs of CNN when it was competing for their wallets with Netflix and Disney Plus,” a former CNN producer said to Fox News. “Do you want to watch ‘The Mandalorian’ or extra Brian Stelter?”

The reference to “The Mandalorian” is a nod to the Disney+ streaming service.

“There should be consequences for the CNN executives who rammed the launch through despite Discovery clearly telegraphing their skepticism,” they said. “Everything should have been paused the day Jeff Zucker was fired because no one else at that level ever thought CNN+ could work.”

Another insider did not criticize the content but the decision to announce the streaming service after the merger with Discovery was announced.

“I didn’t get this whole thing from day one,” the insider said. “I’m not commenting on the content here. I mean – the basic product itself. I didn’t get why the massive money was spent after a merger had been announced. It was like wheee! AT&T gave us the money, let’s burn it. I don’t understand it.”

“No one involved ever had an answer on that,” the person said. “It was always – Kilar wants it.”

CNN host Brian Stelter said it was too soon to know if CNN+ was a success or failure.

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“It’s too early to know if this product, if this service, was a success or a failure,” he said on his CNN+ show “Reliable Sources Daily” on Friday.

“You’ve got all the haters today saying this thing was a failure. I don’t know if we can even ever assess that because it just simply didn’t have enough time because of the management’s change in direction,” the host said.

Stelter, one of several CNN hosts who also hosted a show on the short-lived platform, has dismissed CNN+ failing due to a “crazy clash of strategies,” as CNN president Jeff Zucker and former WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar clearly had a different vision from the post-merger regime of Warner Bros. Discovery executives, who want the company’s streaming assets to be housed in one place.

CNN+ was largely the brainchild of Zucker, who was forced to resign earlier this year, prior to CNN parent company WarnerMedia’s long-planned merger with Discovery. The failed service included liberal-leaning content long embraced by Zucker, as well as culture and hard news shows. Kilar, who is believed to be the person responsible for pushing Zucker out in February, also left the company following the completion of the merger.

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Zucker and Kilar were known to butt heads but appeared aligned on the need for CNN+, which quickly struggled to attract viewers.

“From the POV of the leadership team that launched CNN+, one of the world’s top news brands had to start a subscription business to secure its future. It was an expensive but necessary bet – and had to be made regardless of merger timing,” he said.

The former producer was not the only critic of the CNN+ service.

“Who knew that America wasn’t clamoring for more Rex Chapman and more woke analytics from Jemele Hill? And that there wasn’t a great demand for more Don Lemon, Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper or Brian Stelter? That Americans weren’t saying, ‘Hey, CNN we’ve chosen not to watch your programing when it’s free, maybe what [you] need to do is charge people directly,'” Clay Travis said mockingly on “Outkick the Show.”

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