HBO Show Canceled Despite Emmys Success

HBO has reportedly decided to pass on new seasons of Axios on HBO –– despite its successful showing at this year’s Emmys awards show, according to Puck News. The series took home the award for edited interview for correspondent Jonathan Swan’s interview with Donald Trump, but that wasn’t enough to keep it aboard the WarnerMedia ship. As the company announces its plans to launch CNN+ — a move that’s “the most important launch for CNN since Ted Turner launched the network in June of 1980” according to CNN’s chief digital officer Andrew Morse — the network has given the show the boot. 

CNN+ will be offered as part of the HBO Max bundle, but apparently, the popular streaming service only has room for one major news service partnership. Axios does still have the option to continue at Warner Bros. Discovery via a deal with CNN, but HBO’s. attention has shifted away from news programming as the focus on streaming continues to grow. There’s still an opportunity for specials, however.  “CNN will remain a cable outlet for a very long time, and it will make a lot of money doing so,” one veteran television executive told the outlet. “The HBO Max bundle will offer CNN+, which will be CNN light—until it isn’t.” Axios content remains in high demand as talks continue of the series moving to a new platform.  

CNN+ should occupy a separate lane than that of other streamers as many popular platforms have shied away from traditional news broadcasts. High-level executives at Netflix, Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime each shared that the streaming content boom doesn’t have room for TV news because it can be a “messy and polarizing business” with “big egos with diminishing audiences.” Most notably, the profit margin for traditional TV news doesn’t hold much weight when not included with linear television seeing as its money would largely come from affiliate and subscriber fees. 

The outlet goes on to report that “very few if any” of CNN’s on-air personalities “will move over entirely” to the new streaming service. “If they are existing CNN employees, they will do it in addition to their linear work,” a source shared.