Thread by @UzoOmetu

Pre-pandemic, #CNN was trying to corner the original documentaries game. While that could have decent value for HBO Max, it's unlikely to be a huge driver of subs & retention. So what should they do?

After Breaking News For Decades, CNN Now Juggles It buff.ly/38WFOZ1

The article mentions that at one point, Zucker (the head of CNN) was planning on bombarding viewers with documentaries and docu-series. That's a proven and profitable originals strategy in #cable that is the equivalent of an innings-eater in baseball.

Of course. Not that many people (relatively) watch baseball anymore. And in these times of social unrest, hitting people over the head with lifestyle documentaries isn't exactly going to be something that brings a lot of people running over to CNN.

So for the moment, CNN is all-in on the news stories of our time--the pandemic & ("new") racism--and unsurprisingly, they broke ratings records in Q2, averaging 1.2 million viewers throughout the entire day, for the entire quarter.

While that 1.2 million is great for cable news (yet far behind Fox), it wouldn't mean much to AT&T, which is in pursuit of tens of millions of subscribers for HBO Max. And if the cable ecosystem is dying, albeit a very slow death, what's the long-term value of CNN to ATT/HBO Max?

This is where a tweak to their docs strategy can step in. Specifically, CNN needs to become the #Netflix of news-oriented documentaries. They should produce a new docuseries every day, cornering the market on long-form, in-depth, current news storytelling.

Think about all you can find on YT. If you want to learn about the plights of full-time Uber drivers, you can watch 20 consecutive videos about that. But who would I rather hear that from? User271 on YT, or polished, trained & heavily-marketed journalists from a major news brand?

Obviously, I know YT has a way of capturing you with its algorithm and that "traditional", well-polished news is no longer a prerequisite for viewership. But there's power in brand, and in scale (i.e. reporters), and the NYTimes proves this with their subs lead on a daily basis.

Post this current news environment, CNN has a huge opportunity to become a documentary factory, churning out docuseries at a rate akin to how the NYTimes churns out articles. After all, why compete with Fox & MSNBC on opinion programming every night? Beat them where they're weak.

Fox isn't churning out docuseries. MSNBC sure isn't. While opinion talk is what people want, why can't that be done via the voice of a director or the host of the series? And if you're producing them at a fast rate, you can cover the stories of today, not just yesterday's news.

That's how CNN can stay relevant on cable, but this could be an even bigger boon to #HBOMax if they can pull this off.

Netflix has at least 500 documentaries for the U.S. audience. While docs probably aren't a big draw for them, they might be if they could drive the right audience, at the right time, to a library full of *contemporary* documentaries.

Thankfully for CNN, they reach 90m households on the regular, and that's an opportunity to cross-promote to the right audience at the right time. CBS has already mastered this with how they use CBS, CBS Sports & CBS News to drive subs to CBS All Access.

If you don't think being the leader in docs is worthwhile, you better tell the NYTimes. They have 13 video projects underway and have proven that an onslaught of reporting in audio is big business.

Exclusive: NYT doubles down on TV ambition: ambitionnshttps://bit.ly/2OBlxyZ

It's been conventional wisdom to say the news is what will keep the cable ecosystem together, because it must be watched live. But that may only be the case because it's the best system we have for it today.

YouTube has invested a ton in news over the past few years, with much of that being watched on demand. So don't be surprised if one of these major streamers, like an HBO Max-CNN combo, notices that and tries to augment their own business off of that trend.

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