CNN Divorces Apple News in $50 Million Gamble on Independence

CNN is pulling the plug on Apple News. After a decade of feeding its journalism into the iPhone maker's ecosystem, the network told Apple this week it will terminate their partnership, opting to walk away from a reliable revenue stream to regain control over its audience.

The break, first reported by Semafor on November 23, represents one of the starkest rejections of Big Tech aggregation by a legacy publisher to date. Confirmed by internal memos and a statement from the network, the split means CNN’s stories will vanish from Apple’s free news feed and the paid News+ subscription service by the end of the year.

For CNN, this is an aggressive bet on its own survival. The network is effectively saying it would rather fight for subscribers on its own turf than continue leasing its journalism to a landlord that owns the user data.

The Cost of Leaving the Walled Garden

Leaving Apple’s ecosystem will hurt immediately. According to Semafor and reporting from The Wall Street Journal, the deal netted CNN roughly $50 million annually in recent years—about 5% of its total digital revenue. That’s guaranteed cash flowing out the door at a time when media budgets are already tight.

But CNN leadership, specifically CEO Mark Thompson, seems to view that $50 million as a set of golden handcuffs. The core issue isn't just the revenue share; it's the data black hole. Inside Apple News, CNN is just another tile in an infinite scroll. Apple owns the reader, controls the interface, and dictates the ad environment.

By repatriating its content, CNN hopes to force the estimated 10-15 million users who read its headlines on Apple devices to migrate directly to CNN.com or its app. It’s a risky conversion strategy: trade a massive, passive audience for a smaller, owned one that you can actually monetize and track.

The move echoes The Washington Post’s decision to exit Apple News+ last year. Premium publishers are increasingly realizing that while aggregators offer scale, they often commoditize the brand and train readers to treat news as a utility provided by their phone, rather than a service provided by a newsroom.

The Return of CNN+ (Yes, Really)

Driving this breakup is Mark Thompson’s obsession with building a "direct-to-consumer" future. In a statement, the network said it needs to "focus on owned platforms," but the real news is what Thompson told Variety: CNN is doubling down on its own app ecosystem.

This includes a rollout of AI-powered personalization features that Apple’s standardized interface simply can’t support. More notably, the network is positioning a revamped subscription service as a competitor to the Apple bundle.

Yes, they are reviving the concept of a paid CNN streaming and reading product—tentatively branded as a rebooted CNN+. It’s a bold, perhaps stubborn move, considering the spectacular, short-lived flameout of the original CNN+ in 2022. Thompson is betting he can succeed where the previous regime failed by undercutting the competition. At $4.99 a month for ad-free access, it’s significantly cheaper than Apple News+ ($12.99), but it requires consumers to actively choose CNN over the convenience of a bundle.

Apple Shrugs, But the Gap is Real

Apple took the breakup in stride publicly.Neither Apple nor CNN issued an official public comment regarding the end of their content-sharing agreement."

Privately, however, this creates a hole in Apple’s product. The U.S. market accounts for 80% of Apple News+ subscribers, and losing a primary breaking news partner degrades the utility of the "all-in-one" subscription. Apple News still boasts 125 million monthly active users, but without CNN, the feed loses a significant chunk of its real-time urgency.

The phase-out happens over the next five weeks. Come January 1, 2026, users accustomed to seeing CNN headlines mixed into their daily feed will hit a wall. Apple is banking on friction—the belief that users are too lazy to switch apps. CNN is banking on brand loyalty—the hope that their reporting is worth the extra tap.