CNN Cancels Its Snapchat-Exclusive News Show

Four months ago, CNN launched “The Update” – a daily Snapchat news show. The company still hasn’t found a way to monetise it, so the show is getting axed.

Just a week or so after Bloomberg launched the world’s first social media news network, CNN has realised that “there wasn’t a clear enough path to make money” with its Discovery-based Snapchat show – The Update. As such, the show will be axed immediately. The Wall Street Journal reported that while the premise is great, there doesn’t seem to be a big enough audience of “news-hungry Snapchat users” to support the show.

Is there a big enough audience of news-hungry people on Snapchat to warrant shows like CNN’s The Update?

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When The Update was launched, Snapchat’s senior director of content programming had said that “it’s more critical than ever that Snapchatters have access to the best journalism in the world, right when news breaks.” But is anyone on Snapchat looking for news? Well, perhaps not news per se… Other shows by publishers like NBC or ESPN are doing quite well.

In fact, according to reports, NBC’s Stay Tuned has over 30 million monthly views!

Canceling The Update doesn’t spell goodbye for CNN on Snapchat. The company says its relationship with Snapchat “will very much be continuing.” and there are other opportunities on the horizon for that.

As CNN cancels The Update Snapchat show, other shows by NBC or ESPN are doing quite well on the platform!

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