Last week, President Donald Trump declared a new set of tariffs imposed on foreign countries in an effort to combat trade deficits and when labeled as unfair practices. While it was bad news for millions of 401ks, the timing of the news couldn’t have been better for CNBC, as the business news network launched its direct-to-consumer streaming service — CNBC+ — to platforms like Roku and Apple TV.
Debuting on Wednesday, CNBC+ made its debut with little fanfare or promotion. Priced at $15 per month, the streaming service features the on-demand library of the network’s weekday programming — shows like Squawk Box, Squawk on the Street, Money Movers, Halftime Report, The Exchange, Power Lunch, Closing Bell, and Fast Money — for up to seven days after its original airing.
It also encompasses the network’s live television channel for those viewers looking to shrink the cable television bundle.
CNBC Senior Vice President and General Manager of Direct-to-Consumer Margaret de Luna shared with Barrett Media the genesis behind how the streaming platform got off the ground and made its debut last week.
The network has previously utilized its CNBC Pro — its flagship direct-to-consumer subscription product tailored to retail investors and market professionals that includes expert research and analysis, as well as investing tools coupled with premium video content — as an all-encompassing platform for its subscription content. That included a streaming access to the network’s live television programming.
“When I joined in August of ’21, it was important to me that we started looking at pairing, bundling, whatever term you want to use for it, because I believe that was a way to expand our audience,” de Luna said. “We could develop tiers or lower price products that appeal to our audience, lower barrier to entry, without devaluing our flagship product. It was also a way to give people choices if they had to make the decision to not subscribe at renewal.
“So to kind of figure out where that was, we started really digging into our user data, looking at what was driving subscriptions to Pro, looking at engagement of our Pro subscribers, and talking to them when they did cancel. What were they seeing that was most valuable. And we had really seen a pattern that there were people who subscribed specifically for the live stream. There were people who the bulk of their engagement with Pro was the live stream. We could even see people who might end up canceling CNBC Pro, but we could see that they were actively engaged with the live stream. So it’s not like they weren’t using the product. It was just the price point didn’t make sense, if they were only using one part of the product.”
de Luna added that there were also some CNBC Pro subscribers on tvOS from Apple TV and also on Roku as far back as when she joined the network in 2021. She shared that those users were “definitely the most engaged” when it came to the streaming component of the television network.
With that data in hand, CNBC began the process of looking at building a standalone subscription service that strictly included the video aspect of the network’s content, which grew to become CNBC+. Ideas included using the streaming component as a “win-back”, a way to keep users inside the network’s ecosystem if they deemed the price point of CNBC Pro — which costs $300 per year or $35.99 per month — too high.
Ultimately, the business network decided to quietly test out a streaming product on its own at the end of 2024.
“We were like, ‘Ok, let’s test this out. Let’s go really quietly, let’s just put out a stream product as its own, take what we have from Pro, make its own thing, not going to make a big deal about it, and let’s see what happens in the wild.’ So we had no heavy marketing,” admitted de Luna. “It was very much kind of a beta. We were testing the hypothesis that people would take it. We were testing price point as well, and overwhelmingly, we were seeing a conversion rate on that acquisition page way higher than it had been when they had to subscribe to Pro for it.
“So we knew we were getting people, more people than we would have if it had been Pro. We were starting to bring new subscribers into our ecosystem. They weren’t just Pro subscribers who are now coming back. In fact, the bulk of the CNBC+ subscribers are brand new to our ecosystem. So we proved that hypothesis. There are people who wanted it, the price point wasn’t right, they didn’t want the entire Pro — much bulkier — product … They wanted CNBC TV.”
As the subdued rollout of the subscription service continued, subscribers continually asked for an app to watch CNBC programming on their smart and connected televisions. But the over-the-top options already existed in one way with the tvOS and Roku features. So, the network combined them after knowing the data showed that users able to watch the network on those platforms showed significantly more engagement.
That led to one question.
“So how quickly can we get that?” said de Luna. “How can we meet that need and respond to that? And so that then led to ‘We’re on our web and our mobile app, and how quickly can we get this up onto at least tvOS and Roku first. We were already there, and that was really what we went out with. We took our current experience, added Plus to it, and that was what went out.”
Some observers might not understand why a network like CNBC couldn’t simply decide it would put its channel on a streaming app and immediately launch it. Margaret de Luna shared that going from concept to implementation on something like this “is a long process.”
“It was lots of moving parts,” she shared. “Because we are a live TV network. When you talk about streaming, most of it is primarily on-demand … we are live. So there is a difference. We had to take our live programming — that’s happening and it’s not just happening in the US. We got it happening in Europe, in Asia, as well so we essentially have three live broadcast feeds. And we need to merge those into one global feed so that we truly are covering the market wherever they are open.”
“So, how do you do that? You get the TV people making sure that those feeds are working. And then you gotta get streaming people who figure out how to make those TV feeds into one feed,” de Luna continued. “Then we also have the data feed, which is that combined global feed that we’ve added a lot more market data around it. Those are the true market fanatics. And now you gotta build a second feed and figure out how you start to feed in more market data. That, again, is very involved from a design standpoint.
“Now you got these two feeds, it’s ready to go for streaming. How does that look on our website? How does that look in our mobile app? Which is a different set of engineers, a different skillset who has to then take and build the whole new streaming UI. Now, how do you sell that? It was a very involved process with a lot of different groups within the org. I just can’t say that I’ve ever built a streaming product before for an on-demand world, but I think that our live component adds a complexity to it. So it was quite involved.”
The response from the CNBC audience has been overwhelmingly positive, de Luna shared. Over 75% of CNBC+ customers were new to the company’s direct-to-consumer offerings. With minimal promotion, the network is already more than 50% of its current goal fro the website and mobile app launch of the product.
During the month of April, direct-to-consumer viewing has grown 58% compared to weekday norms. The debut of the offering coincided with CNBC’s most-watched day since January 2022 after Trump revealed his plans to impose sweeping tariffs. Ratings jumped by 49% versus what the network averages during the business day and market hour categories. For the week, CNBC was the sixth most-watched cable network in the daytime ratings within the Adults 25-54 demographics.
Additionally, CNBC.com has seen a 49% increase in digital metrics last week.
Those gains lead to optimism that the growth will continue.
“You could only find Plus if you saw a live stream on our website or you saw ‘Watch live’ in our mobile app. So when someone clicked or tapped on those, all of a sudden they hit the screen that says you can subscribe to CNBC+. No marketing. We didn’t tell anybody about that and we started seeing new subscribers come in at a rate that we hadn’t been expecting,” de Luna said.
“People have been thankful that now they have a week’s worth of on-demand of all of our US business day programming … It’s just been a week and we haven’t started a really heavy campaign of that yet, either. But with the way the markets have been in the past week, the timing was very serendipitous.”
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
