Can CNN’s Hiring Spree Get People to Pay for Streaming News?

The network’s boss, Jeff Zucker, tries to make up for lost time by signing Chris Wallace, Audie Cornish and Eva Longoria.

A couple of months ago, CNN’s forthcoming streaming channel was perceived as little more than a curiosity in the television news business: just another cable dinosaur trying to make the uneasy transition into the digital future.

In fact, the plan to start CNN+, which is expected to go live by late March, amounted to a late arrival to the subscription-based streaming party, more than three years after Fox News launched Fox Nation.

Then the hirings began.