CNN’s daily news show on Snapchat, The Update, is ending after only four months, the companies said on Friday.
“Snap and CNN have built a great partnership over the years and our teams have enormous admiration for each other,” the companies said in a joint statement. “We plan to keep working together and mutually decided to hit pause as we explore the best opportunities for doing that. Our relationship will very much be continuing.”
CNN announced the Snapchat Show on Aug. 21. “Tapping into the largest global newsgathering operation, reporting from CNN’s own anchors, correspondents and reporters will publish on Snapchat throughout each day and time zone, with rolling updates as news breaks,” the company said in an announcement. “Each Show will feature five or more stories from CNN’s team around the world, further cementing CNN as a key source of breaking news for Snapchatters.”
The Update is slated to end at the end of December. The show is CNN’s only one on Snapchat. (The cancellation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.)
While the show is said to drive fairly meaningful engagement, its money-making potential did not justify the “heavy lift” of producing it, it was said internally.
In July, NBC News launched a daily news show on Snapchat called Stay Tuned. The network said the show reaches tens of millions of unique viewers every month.
“It’s not easy to do,” Nick Ascheim, SVP of digital at NBC News Group, said of producing the show. “It requires a different skill set, which we found in the stellar team we put together, it requires close collaboration with a partner, which we have with Snapchat, and it requires perseverance and a willingness to adapt.”
