CNN Launches ‘The Update’ News Program on Snapchat

The American basic cable and satellite television news channel, Cable News Network, or also known as CNN, launched on Monday its own daily news shows on Snapchat dubbed “The Update,” which scheduled to start streaming everyday at 6PM ET, and will produce breaking news segments.

CNN is the second news platform show to have shown interest in the social platform, following NBC News month-old “Stay Tuned”, which runs shows twice a day, and has seen more than 29 million unique viewers in its first month.

More than 60% of the ‘Stay Tuned’ audience are under 25, and more than 40% watched the show at least three days a week, showing potential for publishers to reach a key younger audience on Snapchat.

A Sneak Peek at ‘The Update’

‘The Update’ is a CNN’s first daily show on Snapchat that will offer at least five biggest news stories from the day featuring videos from CNN reporters and bureaus around the globe, to attract younger audience. Unlike ‘Stay Tuned’ of NBC News, ‘The Update’ will only run once a day.

While NBC’s news show is hosted by two dedicated anchors, Gadi Schwartz and Savannah Sellers, CNN’s news show features collected reports from its anchors, correspondents, and reporters worldwide, it doesn’t have special anchors just for this show. The reports are collected by the editorial and design teams in order to be suited into the swipeable, vertical video format used by Snapchat.

The news show’s focal feature will be hard news, and may favor the topics CNN already found resound with Snapchat users, like climate change, race relations, and politics and international affairs. Users can also tap through the stories to skip those they don’t want to watch.

Aside from being a daily show, ‘The Update’ will be the home for all CNN content on Snapchat’s Discover platform, where publishers post daily digests of video and editorial content.

“We are introducing our brilliant cast of world class anchors and reporters to a young audience in a smart, accessible way with ‘The Update,’ said Samantha Barry, CNN’s executive producer of social and emerging media, in a statement. 

“In today’s news environment, people are hungry for news, and they want a quick update on where things are at within one tap of their phone. So, we’re serving that up, speaking their language, and delivering it in beautiful, vertical, mobile-friendly video.”

‘The Update’ launch comes on the heels of a June announcement that CNN-owner, Time Warner, had hit a $100 million deal to produce original programming for Snapchat. The deal consisted of up to 10 original shows a year across Time Warner properties, including HBO, TBS, and Warner Bros.

About CNN

Cable News Network was an original content affiliate for Discover, a snapshot feature that debuted in January 2015, and lets users watch stories from publishers.

In July, CNN had 42 million unique visitors between 18 and 34 across desktops and mobile phones. That already makes it the top digital news source among millennials, ahead of BuzzFeed and New York Times Digital.

It is owned by Turner Broadcasting, a unit of Time Warner Inc., and it was one of the original Snapchat Discover launch partners.

About Snapchat

Snapchat premiered shows a year ago as a way to offer short-form, made-for-mobile video to its viewers. Today, the app reaches 173 million daily active users, and has introduced such shows at The Voice on Snapchat and Phone Swap. To date, Snapchat’s nearly 25 series have been watched by more than 88 million unique viewers, who have spent 22 million hours watching the programming.

Shares of Snap Inc., Snapchat’s parent company, have declined 44% from their closing price on March 2, their first day of trading. Some investors questioned the company’s ability to compete for users and advertising dollar with competitors like Facebook Inc.’s Instagram, which has similar features.

“Since launching content on Snapchat, we have believed in the importance of giving our community access to accurate and authoritative news coverage, and CNN has played an important part in that from the beginning. It’s more critical than ever that Snapchatters have access to the best journalism in the world, right when news breaks, and we’re excited to watch CNN deliver that to them through ‘The Update.’

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