The Edsel, Quibi and CNN+? New addition to business failures

NEW YORK (AP) — The Edsel. Quibi. New Coke. The Segway. DeLorean sports cars. The pantheon of colossal business failures has a new member in the CNN+ streaming service.

The news network's subscription offering hadn't even been operating for a month before Warner Bros. Discovery announced this week that it would be shutting down on April 30.

“It's going to be in the Top 10,” said Steve Rosenbaum, executive director of the NYC Media Lab and an expert in business innovation, surveying the lengthy history of products that went belly-up.

While “CNN minus” comments quickly proliferated, it's no joke to the more than 300 people hired for CNN+, which was in development for two years. CNN is expected to absorb some of those jobs but there will be layoffs — a clear picture on those numbers is still emerging.

The company spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the project and no one knew when, or if, losses would be replaced by profits.

Old-timers remember the Edsel, a new car model introduced by Ford in 1957 that was poorly made and too expensive. It was discontinued after two years, costing Ford an estimated $250 million, the name remembered as a synonym for business failure long after the car itself was forgotten.

Coca-Cola's attempt to introduce a new flavor in 1985 was dropped in weeks. Except for its cameo role in the “Back to the Future” movies, the DeLorean didn't make a dent. Inventors of the Segway found in 1999 that not many people wanted to spend around $5,000 for a glorified scooter.

Quibi, short for “quick bites,” had the backing of Hollywood's biggest names and $1.75 billion from investors when the mobile video service was introduced in 2020. It lasted six months.

Presciently, reporter Josef Adalian recalled that failure in an article for Vulture headlined,...