AMAC Exclusive – By Shane Harris
In news that sent shockwaves through the media world, it was announced last Thursday that CNN’s $300 million streaming platform, CNN+, will cease all operations and stop broadcasting at the end of this week, just one month after its launch. But while the CNN+ flop is the most high-profile failure for mainstream news outlets recently, it’s hardly the only one, raising questions about just how fragile the liberal media ecosystem has become in a country that has grown increasingly skeptical of the lies and deceptions emanating from our screens.
After a highly publicized unveiling at the end of March, CNN+ was on air just over three weeks before CNN parent company Warner Bros. Discovery (formed after a merger between Discovery and WarnerMedia, CNN’s longtime owner) announced they were pulling the plug on the nascent project. Executives at CNN immediately tried to spin the fiasco as being due solely to a lack of support from Discovery leadership, but according to internal figures, the platform had just 150,000 subscribers, and fewer than 10,000 viewers were watching at any given time – far below viewership numbers for even moderately popular podcasts or YouTube livestreamers.
The failure of CNN+ is also another embarrassing chapter for a network that has been mired in chaos for most of the past year. First came the downfall of CNN’s top-rated anchor, Chris Cuomo, after revelations that he had used his position as a media personality to help his brother, disgraced New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, fight sexual harassment allegations. Then CNN president Jeff Zucker was forced to resign after embarrassing details emerged about a decades-long undisclosed romantic affair with a subordinate at the company. To top it all off, CNN has been bleeding viewers at an alarming rate, as the network’s top show for the first quarter of 2022 ranked just 22nd among cable news programs.
But it’s not just CNN that’s struggling. Over at MSNBC, ratings for the first few months of 2022 were only slightly better. Elsewhere in the streaming world, hosts of previously popular cable shows are struggling to catch on with audiences. “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” for example, which launched on Apple TV+ in September, saw its viewership drop to just 40,000 by its fifth episode.
So what’s going on? Mainstream media apologists have been quick to cite declining viewership for cable TV, in general, to explain falling ratings for left-wing news channels, while several outlets were quick to tie reports that Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers in the first three months of 2022 to the news of CNN+’s collapse, implying that it’s simply fierce competition among streaming services that led to the latter’s failure.
But both of those narratives are misleading at best and blatantly false at worst. While it is true that cable news viewership overall has been declining for some time, channels like Fox News actually saw increased viewership in the first quarter of 2022, with the network being the only cable news channel to post year-over-year gains.
Fox News has also seen continued growth of its own streaming service, Fox Nation, since the launch of the platform back in 2018. Other conservative outlets like the Daily Wire have also seen exponential growth amid sharp readership declines for left-leaning publications. News articles from the Daily Wire routinely outperform pieces from the Washington Post and the New York Times on Facebook, and popular Daily Wire podcast hosts like Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh draw more viewers to their shows than nearly every host on CNN and MSNBC. Likewise, a recent speech by Donald Trump at a Heritage Foundation event drew over 800,000 viewers on Rumble alone—as one internet commenter noted, significantly more than CNN is drawing.
The pattern that begins to emerge is that those outlets pushing left-wing narratives on everything from foreign policy to education are struggling, while those outlets countering the liberal groupthink are thriving.
This in part helps explain why Netflix has been struggling as well, further undercutting the argument that it’s just a tough environment for streaming platforms generally that led to the downfall of CNN+. Since Netflix began shifting away from old TV shows and movies and more toward original content, the platform has become an incubator of left-wing ideology. As one example among many, Netflix’s newest original series follows the fictional story of a “cisgender man” who becomes pregnant. The site also now has an entire section dedicated to “LGBTQ Stories for Families.”
While the company claims that its content is not political, many conservatives have also noted that Netflix has plenty of films and documentaries bashing conservative viewpoints and Republican political figures, but few similarly critical flicks about liberals and Democrats.
While executives at Netflix have blamed everything from inflation to Vladimir Putin for their subscriber loss, the simpler explanation appears to be the same one that CNN, MSNBC, and nearly every other mainstream outlet refuses to accept: people just aren’t that interested in what they have to say. The complete abandonment of all appearance of neutrality in favor of pushing a woke agenda has now alienated a huge swath of America – Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike.
Once this vital bond of trust between the public and a news source is broken, it is difficult to repair. And as the purveyors of left-wing propaganda implode, so too will the broader left-wing narrative, which has always been sustained only by a coordinated effort to suppress the truth. That’s all good news for conservatives, and for everyone in this country who values honesty and integrity from their information brokers.
Shane Harris is a writer and consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @Shane_Harris_
GOOD! Here’s to watching it come crashing down like the Hindenburg.
Socialist Communist television has failed because the the Democrats were all wrong on the WOK, diversity issue. Americans are tuning it out. The open boarder was the last grasp for power and relevance. In-spite of title 42 has been keeping the wave of illegal immigrants a ‘bit lower’, lifting title 42 will increase the wave of immigrants a lot. But most illegals are not wok, but conservative. If they are given amnesty and allowed to vote and are not threatened someway, they will vote for freedom[ their reason to immigrate]. The cartel or other power players will try to coursed the illegals into voting Democrat. Hopefully they can read English. I’m not sure the ballots printed in Spanish? The Dems are shooting themselves with open boarders and WOK.
I am so sick and disgusted with ALL this LGBTQ nonsense which should really stand for “Liberal Garbage But Thoroughly Queer”! . . . If something is NOT NORMAL it is DEFINITELY QUEER or ABNORMAL!
I came to the conclusion several years ago, that “objective journalism” is an oxymoron. The “media”
only gives you the information to support their agenda, and that is never the whole truth. Most of the so called “journalists” are more interested in sensationalism than reporting fact. Especially when the facts don’t support their point.
It about time these self-proclaimed Media Gods start to see they are mortal. And the viewing public has the real power.
Good news, less fake news.
You can’t build your audience on lies, sooner or later the truth will prevail.
TRUMP WON THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS IT
It’s not like the liberals aren’t getting their progressive messages across to the American public. The problem is that they ARE and the public doesn’t like it.
When you keep saying your truthful, honest and unbiased, but your actions show otherwise, people soon see through the lies.
It is good vs evil, God vs Satan. God always wins.
Let’s hope. I subscribe to Bill O’Reilly because he is an Independent and at least attempts to deliver unbiased news. It would probably help if the ultra wealthy sociopaths like Soros and Gates could no longer fund the propaganda machines known as MSM.
as good things come to an end so do the bad
This is just so interesting to watch. Not on Twitter, but apparently a lot of bullies were because they are blowing up over fear of not getting their way on censoring people and opinions they hate. Apparently ‘free speech’ to them is a bad unless they have the only say. Just showing true colors I guess…wow
WHEN YOU SEE THAT 95 % OF THE TV ADVIRTISEMENTS/COMMERCIALS FEATURE A BLAK MAN AND A WHITE WOMAN. YOU KNOW SOMETHING’ AIN’T RIGHT. PLUS ALL OF THE BIASED AND SUBJECTIVE MANNER AND THE LYING ON THESE CANCEROUS, liberal MEDIA, U KNOW THIS AIN’T RIGHT EITHER. JUST MORE NAILS INTO THE COFFIN OF OUR NATION THE U. S. RIP. THE CANCEROUS, ANTI-AMERICAN, LYING, CHEATING libs HAVE DESTROYED OUR ONCE GREAT NATION AND soros, THE obamas AND THE clintons ARE RESPONSIBLE. OUR ONCE TRUSTED FBI IS NOW THE EQUIVILENT TO THE russian, kgb. SAME WITH MOST judges
CNN+, oh sorry, I mean minus. What a joke those over paid fools are to think anyone would tune in. But they make millions of $$$$$$$ a year for misinformation. CNN sucks!!! lol
Poor Chris Wallace, loser. lol
Shall we buy out Facebook, Google, YouTube, Mailchimp etc??
Clean sweep
The Communist News Network, in a truth exposing twist of their signature phrase:
“CNN – The Most Busted Name In News”
Lets keep in mind the far left’s mantra. “Nothing is ever your fault.” So how can anyone ever expect a far left media organization to look inward and try to figure out what they’re doing wrong. It isn’t gonna happen.
First thought that came to mind was that I hoped all the insanely woke media idiots would reenact the “jumping out of skyscraper windows”,whose myth was reported at the time of the crash of 1929….but then something much more important came to mind.
We as conservatives read about all these failures/losses on the part of the perverted progressives that infect the Democrat Party. The danger of reading all this is it can lead to complacency. Voters or potential voters can come to believe that “the left is failing and we are going to see a red tsunami……so why bother to vote or become active politically?” THIS is the danger. Do NOT buy into anything that makes you believe that the coming mid term results are set in stone. Do NOT underestimate the degree of fraud the left WILL bring to the elections in November. The fraud will again be substantial both hidden and blatent. We have already seen the two tiered judicial system where conservatives can be detained in political prisons for the crime of being ushered into the Capital Building while leftists caught committing downright election fraud get a slap on the wrist…….or have their actions ignored by lunatic leftist district attorneys and worse, judges.
Do NOT allow yourself or anyone you know to become complacent regarding the coming elections.Fight like your life depends on the results because frankly,it does.
Great reporting–finally the ice is beginning to thaw. I was watching an episode of Andy Griffith from years ago and wondered why I ended up watching 3 shows. It’s because of good values that we recognize are supported–there is always a problem that has to be solved in the show. ‘Do the right thing’ is the message. We don’t have that anymore. There is nothing recognizable or ‘normal’–maybe ‘instructive’ is a better word. Everything goes and ‘it’s all good’. There is virtually no channel, streaming service–not even Disney that you can trust you could watch with your family.
In freefall, huh? Hmm… I’ll believe Americans have finally awakened when I see a “bloodbath” in the midterm election results for the Democrats.
CNN has never been real news contributor. While it is seen all over the country in airports, bus stations, Amtrack stations, etc., most people ignore it all together. Their blatant opposition to conservatives and Donald Trump in particular has branded them as far leftist, out of the mainstream propogandists. People can watch CNN for free, although not many people do, so why would they believe that anyone is dumb enough to pay to watch them destroy this country?
What turns me off is how Netflix and other networks insert liberal politics into the most apolitical programming. E.g. Watching “Inventing Anna”, a true story about a woman pretending to be an heiress to defraud the wealthy of NYC and elsewhere on Netflix, the dialogue inserted anti-Trump dialogue into several scenes in which reporters made nasty remarks about the President. Totally unnecessary and not even pertinent to the story line. Shonda Rimes is the creator of that show so I should have known as her Grey’s Anatomy has been political for the past several years, imposing homosexuality, racism and more Leftist dribble into ongoing story lines. Even commercials, which I skip as much as possible, are heavily loaded with leftist lecturing to the rest of us, both blatant and subliminally. Police shows, hospital shows — many so-called “entertainment” dramas and even situation comedies are loaded guns at Conservative thinking now. We have to boycott and take them down, put them in their place as is now happening to the conniver hosts on the alphabet and cable outlets.
Yes!
well it could not happen to a larger set of manipulative liars.
Add to this that Twitter is suddenly going to be more middle of the road and the leftie left left has a problem
What happens when all those low IQ lefties have to face both sides of the story instead of their echo chamber.
It is going to be fun to watch.
Plus while all of that is going on: Obama, Hilary, pelosi, adam schiff, biden, and nedlar are all under investigation for treason,insurrection, and briber.
Then you include that there have been a bunch of arrests for democrat voter fraud from the 2020 election in the last month.
Oh and the side effect on the left beloved covid shots are starting to be published making vax booster rates down at 13% of the high times for vaxes so the pro vaxxers are all being shown they were wrong. Remember when the pro vaxxers were taking people off transplant lists, refusing non-vaxxed people access and saying non vaxed health insurance shoudl be higher. not it is the vaxxed people who are getting the side effect and should have higher insurance costs.
the whole pile of lies the low IQ left believes in are all sort of falling down around them.
I find it hilarious.
I would love to see these stupid college professors, teachers, arrogant college and high school students explain their completely incompletely thinking now.
Now all the republican and conservatives are on count down to saying ah ah I was right and you were an ass.
oh I just can;t wait: ah ah I was right.
Sorry, the alphabet soup legacy media is still the default news source for dems and many independents. As well, most local newspapers are nytimes lite. The average sleepwalker is programmed daily with leftwing ‘news’. It takes effort to access conservative sites, effort that few are willing to make.
As it is said, “Go woke, go broke.” A lot of people are catching on to what is really going on in the world.
Call CNN+ the Air America of television
… mainstream media propaganda here in America has to be considered the most miserable failure in human history. Our mainstream media couldn’t sell us that it wasn’t a lab leak, that it was an honest election, that Joe Biden’s the most popular guy since Elvis, that ANTIFA looting is the summer of love, much less that burning buildings, people face down dead in our streets, constitutes a “mostly peaceful” protest.
Does comment on left-wing narratives insinuating that any network that pushes right-wing narratives are telling the truth all the time & not trying to get viewer to agree. Amazes me that Fox News viewers have increased 1Q if 2022. Tucker Carlson seems like a troubled/angry young man: & where is he coming from last week on getting naked & zapping lower body with red rays (infrared ??) as he blames increase in crime on decrease in testosterone levels in men. He has been watching too many re-runs of Twilight Zone lately. I do not want that right-wing garbage pushed on me or my family. One thing going for Fox is that Trump seems to still like them & speaks to Hannity. Which is surprising as Trump was livid when FOX declared Biden winner in Arizona on election night. Both parties have a tangled web o deceit & deception to entice the voters. And last thing, do either or neither of the two parties intend to accept future election results??? As that is America’s Future.
This is an encouraging development. It seemed to me that the Left’s domination of all manner of social media over the years was permanent. My take has always been that these liberal “news” outlets were undeniably biased, showcasing anti-Conservative hatred, lying about our rightful President (Trump) and disparaging all things Christian, decent, traditional and simply all-American. It took a while, but it seems that the vitriol spewed by these Socialist talking heads has finally hit a nerve in the conscious of America… and it’s high-time.
It’s been fantasy land for the major networks for years now because they have gotten away with siding with the leftists. But what you see on their news broadcasts many times only tells a fraction of what is really going on. Maybe they have finally run out of credibility and folks want to learn all the fact and decide for themselves.
“While executives at Netflix have blamed everything from inflation to Vladimir Putin for their subscriber loss, the simpler explanation appears to be the same one that CNN, MSNBC, and nearly every other mainstream outlet refuses to accept: people just aren’t that interested in what they have to say. The complete abandonment of all appearance of neutrality in favor of pushing a woke agenda has now alienated a huge swath of America – Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike.
Once this vital bond of trust between the public and a news source is broken, it is difficult to repair. And as the purveyors of left-wing propaganda implode, so too will the broader left-wing narrative, which has always been sustained only by a coordinated effort to suppress the truth. That’s all good news for conservatives, and for everyone in this country who values honesty and integrity from their information brokers.”
What blows my mind about this paragraph is that even though the article is accurate – they used the tamest language to describe the fall-out – look at the programming content they just outlined – a pregnant – cis gender man- WHATEVER IN GOD’S GREEN EARTH THE HELL THAT MEANS, and a family homosexual option – what world are we living in when such outright hellish satanic abominations from the deepest part of the underworld are met with such tame reporting – when all of a society should have been in an uproar breaking down the doors fo netflix and screaming/rioting for its complete destruction – instead this “stupid” writer is trying to play nice when he describes the unthinkable abomination and perversion of God’s order of a man getting pregnant, and homosexual storylines even broadcast at all but more so – TO FAMILIES AND CHILDREN. AMAC if you report in such a namby pamby, neutral, gutless way – YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM. PEOPLE ARE JUST NOT THAT INTERESTED IN WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY ISN’T THE PROBLEM – THEIR GOD OF SATAN IS.
Good! There might be hope of saving America if the Left Commie crap implodes quickly enough.
The movement back to Sanity is picking up speed by the day. The Liberal Party is over, the candles burned out and the guests long gone home. It’s OUR turn Conservatives, let’s do it right.
That WHOLE Liberal crowd should wake up and DROP THAT PILE OF WOKE BULLSH*T POISON which is ruining America… Better yet, the LIBS should be DROPPED IN THEIR ENTIRETY!!! Vote CONSERVATIVE in November and in 2024..!!!
I don’t believe this “Red Wave” will happen in November, as much as I hope it will.
Why?
Because NOTHING has been done to ensure a fair and honest election. No one in the government has so much as whine about it, let alone advance any legislation or means to enforce existing safeguards.
From where I am standing, I see no way to vote ourselves out of the govjacking that has taken place.
Here is what I want to know. Why are you AMAC and your writers not more aggressive and outright, no-holds-barred non-polite about what is going on in our country? Stop being nice about the filth that is being shown on in our country, the corruption of our politics (there are people in politics and their advisors that should be arrested, tried for treason and put in jail), television screens (I no longer watch antenna T.V.) I watch old movies on the Roku cable network and am increasingly unhappy with what I see on that channel.
We need to use Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” tactics to fight them. We need to learn how the liberals use them and fight fire with fire.
I think Trump was using those tactics and that is what drove them crazy. This go along to get along stuff is not working!
Do you mean the “81 million” Biden voters didn’t watch CNN+? Hmmmmmmm
I guess dead people don’t watch TV.
RED= REMOVE EVERY DEMOCRAT
Amen.
Lol too freaking funny!! Anyone deserves it it’s this lying evil media next is fakebook I pray … the left loons are the evil that’s invaded our country
This is a beginning, but it isn’t happening fast enough. I am hoping that Nov is a blood bath for the Libs, and we can right the ship. I am skeptical and trust no one in government or the media to tell the truth. When we are told the truth about the vaccines and the plandemic on all media outlets, then I will begin to believe we are on the right track.
Watch the new movie coming out by Dinesh D’zouza 2,000 Mules
Proof of the election fraud need to share and get it out
breitbart.com/politics/2022/04/23/trump-reveals-trailer-of-explosive-2000-mules-ballot-harvesting-documentary-at-ohio-rally/
Guess I cannot copy/paste links watch 2000 Mules by Dinesh D’Souza it’s about proof of election fraud, use DuckDuckGo
AMEN thank God
Love it, love it, left wing news getting what it deserves! People are tired of the lies, misleading news, and getting left wing view points rammed down their throat!
If this election fraud will take hold and one State start the decertification process others will follow so perhaps the rightful President can be put back in office.