CNN Exec: Pipeline Had Too Few Subs; Revamped CNN.com With Free Pipeline Will Be “Game Changer”
David Payne, CNN.com SVP and GM, was a true Pipeline believer. His dismay at the premium service’s pending June 30 demise comes through clearly in a message to Pipeline subs posted on the CNN.com blog, just as he has to admit that even at 7 cents a day—the way he likes to break down the subscription cost—Pipeline had too few subs to ever achieve full scale. His two reasons for the change to free, flash-based video: “First, as popular as the service was, it became clear to us that reaching true scale was going to be impossible if the product remained a pay service. Remember that our entire mission is about getting more news to more people on more platforms… and too few people actually subscribed for us to meet that goal.” (This really cannot have come as much of a shock; the act of charging automatically limits the potential audience.) The second reason
—His second reason: the new flash player created for CNN.com’s Integrated Story “was a better experience than even the Pipeline player for videos. There are no load times, no pop-up players, no changing software environment to worry about, and you can get more context for the story in an integrated way.” (via LostRemote)
Will the new site be the “game changer” Payne promises? We’ll see when the newest iteration launches July 1. For now, the beta site has gone offline so changes can be incorporated. From Mitch Gelman’s post: “We’re making some changes based on the thoughts you sent us — adding more news headlines to the home page, improving the speed with which video renders, darkening the link color and sharpening the distinction between the content elements.”
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Comments (6)
Jun 27, 2007 11:36 PM
I really liked my CNN pipeline and I would have paid more for it even each month. I really am not interested in your free videos. I wanted live streams from my computer that I could tune into at work or on the go. If I wanted just the videos those are available threw AP, MSNBC and others. We just need to have our pipeline back
sign
pipeline addict!
Jun 28, 2007 10:53 AM
I guess your really do not understand, the flash player, will be faster and higher quality feeds for free. Why pay for news, when it is going to freely stream into your computer?
Jun 28, 2007 3:54 PM
The biggest disappointment will be losing CNN International, which could be seen on Pipeline in the evenings and weekends. You could watch breaking news in the early morning hours when CNN/US insists on reairing previously recorded broadcasts. Since many cable operators don’t seem to want to carry it, U.S. viewers don’t have many world news options on TV.
Jul 11, 2007 11:46 AM
CNN Pipeline was always available in Japan and it was the ‘only’ way that I could get live streaming news as we don’t have TV access. Now, the free live video CNN offers says “Stream Blocked in Your Region”. Thanks for the lousy ‘upgrade’ CNN!
Sep 10, 2007 9:44 AM
I live in Japan, and paid for the Pipeline because of the live feeds that were available, now due to the changes, we who live in Japan are not able to get the live feeds. CNN others may have benefited from the changes, but we who live in Japan have lost out, very disappointed. Can something be done about this, that we in Japan may also be able to get the live feeds. Please help us who live in Japan.
Apr 16, 2008 9:13 AM
I apparently had my last computer just before pipeline went bust. I drive a truck for a living, so CNN pipeline was my quick link to all the news. Now the only thing I can see doing is hunting and clicking for each tidbit of news. I have other sources that I can do that with. I liked CNN Pipeline because it gave me all the news in one nice neat stream as if I had tuned on the TV to CNN. I would gladly have paid, but the computer I had already had it installed and running. I was trying to figure out how to set it up on this computer when I read the article that it as reached it’s demise