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business Monday 25 april 2022
The Edsel, Quibi and CNN+? New addition to business failures

By DAVID BAUDER forced to resign because
AP Media Writer of not disclosing a roman-
NEW YORK (AP) — The Ed- tic relationship with a co-
sel. Quibi. New Coke. The worker.
Segway. DeLorean sports CNN+ launched on March
cars. The pantheon of co- 24, only days before Dis-
lossal business failures has a covery executives took
new member in the CNN+ over. In a sense, that was a
streaming service. business provocation: Why
The news network's sub- start a project that was the
scription offering hadn't brainchild of a former lead-
even been operating for a ership team, just before
month before Warner Bros. new leaders were coming
Discovery announced this with ideas of their own, not
week that it would be shut- to mention a mandate to
ting down on April 30. cut costs?
"It's going to be in the Top Incoming CNN chief ex-
10," said Steve Rosenbaum, ecutive Chris Licht, in Thurs-
executive director of the day's meeting with em-
NYC Media Lab and an ex- ployees, likened it to a new
pert in business innovation, owner coming in, seeing a
surveying the lengthy his- beautiful new house, but
tory of products that went Signage is seen at CNN center, Thursday, April 21, 2022, in Atlanta. declaring he needed an
belly-up. Associated Press apartment instead.
While "CNN minus" com- The Discovery team made
ments quickly proliferated, weeks. Except for its cameo large number of people will "In launching a new busi- it clear in the meeting that
it's no joke to the more than role in the "Back to the Fu- want to pay for it." ness, timing is everything they didn't think CNN+ was
300 people hired for CNN+, ture" movies, the DeLorean Rosenbaum, a self-de- and their timing couldn't going to work, based on
which was in development didn't make a dent. Inven- scribed news junkie, have been worse," said Al- its own experience with
for two years. CNN is ex- tors of the Segway found in couldn't figure out what len Adamson, cofounder streaming.
pected to absorb some of 1999 that not many people CNN+ offered that was of the marketing firm Meta- "If we're going in a new di-
those jobs but there will be wanted to spend around unique and vital to him. He force. "Streaming services rection, we can't let it go
layoffs — a clear picture on $5,000 for a glorified scoot- said he never even consid- were in a bubble and ev- on one moment more than
those numbers is still emerg- er. ered paying the monthly eryone knew there was a it needs to," said J.B. Per-
ing. Quibi, short for "quick bites," $5.99 fee to subscribe. limit to how many stream- rette, head of streaming for
The company spent hun- had the backing of Holly- He said it had "lots of fa- ing services they would the new company, in the
dreds of millions of dollars wood's biggest names and mous faces that I get other get." employee meeting.
on the project and no one $1.75 billion from investors places." When Discovery bought Licht repeatedly praised
knew when, or if, losses when the mobile video CNN+ has a handful of its out CNN's previous corpo- his staff for the quality of
would be replaced by prof- service was introduced in own news programs, docu- rate owner, AT&T, many CNN+, and there's no way
its. 2020. It lasted six months. mentaries and talk shows observers believed CNN+ of knowing whether the
Old-timers remember the Presciently, reporter Josef and big names like Chris would eventually be ab- product itself would have
Edsel, a new car model in- Adalian recalled that fail- Wallace, Anderson Coo- sorbed into a larger app failed if it had a few years
troduced by Ford in 1957 ure in an article for Vulture per and Jemele Hill but, that also had entertain- to settle in.
that was poorly made and headlined, "CNN+ has Qui- because of cable and sat- ment offerings. And Rosenbaum said he
too expensive. It was dis- bi Vibes," that posted two ellite contracts, could not It never got that far, leav- might have been enticed
continued after two years, days after its launch. offer a streamed version ing some of its employees to see if it was worth it
costing Ford an estimated "CNN+ in its formative of what most people know shell-shocked at the Thurs- with an offer of a few free
$250 million, the name re- phase feels somewhat CNN for, the television net- day meeting when they months.
membered as a synonym like the Quibi of streaming work's continuous news were told the service would Time, however, was one
for business failure long af- news," Adalian wrote. "Lots coverage. abruptly close. thing CNN+ did not have.
ter the car itself was forgot- of money has been spent, People can find streaming One of the service's big- "It's a big failure," Adam-
ten. big stars are onboard, but news in several places — gest champions, former son said, "but not as big
Coca-Cola's attempt to it's hard to figure out just ABC, CBS and NBC all have CNN chief Jeff Zucker, was as it would have been if it
introduce a new flavor what the service is sup- their own services, for ex- bumped out of the picture kept going and became a
in 1985 was dropped in posed to be and why a ample — for free. on Feb. 1 when he was black hole of money."q

Feds: Starbucks engaged in unfair

labor practices in Phoenix

PHOENIX (AP) — Federal gional director, in a filing as locations nationwide
labor officials have asked Friday in U.S. District Court in seek to unionize. Workers at
a judge to force Starbucks Arizona, sought an injunc- the flagship Seattle loca-
Corp. to reinstate three tion that would make Star- tion voted Thursday to form
union activists at its Phoe- bucks hire back its three a union, as did baristas in
nix location, alleging that employees — who were Colorado on Friday.
the coffee giant engaged three of four members of In Phoenix, federal labor of- Michelle Eisen, a barista at the Buffalo, N.Y., Elmwood Starbucks
in unfair labor practices, the union organizing com- ficials allege that Starbucks location, helps out the local Starbucks Workers United, employ-
documents show. mittee. retaliated after it learned ees of a local Starbucks, as they gather at a local union hall to
The National Labor Rela- The NLRB's petition is the lat- of employees there seek- cast votes to unionize or not, on Feb. 16, 2022, in Mesa, Ariz.
Associated Press
tions Board's Phoenix re- est blow to the coffee chain ing to unionize.q