CNN trimming back its digital operations after huge growth spurt

Posted Monday, February 12, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog

CNN is planning to trim back its digital operations after a major growth spurt the past 18 months.

Vanity Fair's Joe Pompeo reports that around 50 jobs will be cut soon all across its digital platform this week. The departments across the globe include CNN Money, video, product, tech and social publishing. It plans to scale back on its virtual reality productions and work on Snapchat.

A year ago, CNN was trying to take on BuzzFeed and Vice but building revenue in the digital advertising arena has gotten more difficult for everyone not named Google and Facebook. CNN missed its target by tens of millions but remains profitable, the story said.

It's not a major setback for CNN given its overall size and profitability but reveals how unstable the digital world can be in 2018.

"We've been transparent about our strategy," said Matt Dornic, a representative for CNN, told Vanity Fair. "In order to innovate, grow and experiment, we've added more than 200 jobs in the past 18 months. Not every new project has paid off so we will stop some activities in order to reallocate those resources and enable future experimentation. Organizations that do not make big bets and continuously evolve are the ones that fail."