There’s no denying that Breaking News is a super-useful app/Twitter account/idea: Day in and day out, morning and night, its editors in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Seattle push out hard news from around the globe. Breaking News’s Twitter account has around 9.5 million followers, who in the space of a couple of hours on Thursday morning received alerts about Donald Trump’s labor secretary appointment, the updated death toll in Aleppo, and a 6.8-magnitude earthquake in California.
Apparently, though, “useful” wasn’t enough of a value proposition for NBC News, which owns Breaking News. Breaking News general manager Cory Bergman announced on Twitter on Thursday that it will shut the service down as of the end of the year.
This is a breaking story I hoped I'd never report: NBC News has decided to shut down Breaking News effective Dec 31. /1
— Cory Bergman (@corybe) December 8, 2016
We're true believers of news that isn't designed for clicks, but a service that helps people and companies make smarter, safer decisions. /2
— Cory Bergman (@corybe) December 8, 2016
As we discovered, such a model doesn't fit with advertising, and despite a surge of interest in our premium data, the money has run out. /3
— Cory Bergman (@corybe) December 8, 2016
It has been the greatest honor to work with such a talented team: the industry's best minds in mobile/social innovation. (Hire 'em!) /4
— Cory Bergman (@corybe) December 8, 2016
We have tremendously loyal and influential global users who rely on us daily for discovery and fact-checking. We will miss serving them. /5
— Cory Bergman (@corybe) December 8, 2016
My thanks to NBC for taking a bold bet and financing us for so long. Nobody has done what we've done, and we're damn proud of it. /6
— Cory Bergman (@corybe) December 8, 2016
Special thanks to co-founders @magnetbox and @thomasbrew. To @ctillinghast for his vision and @mpoppel for pioneering @breakingnews. /7
— Cory Bergman (@corybe) December 8, 2016
Stay tuned for more later, including details on how you can hire the best mobile/social talent in the business. /end
— Cory Bergman (@corybe) December 8, 2016
“We are committed to a culture of experimentation and innovation at NBC News Digital, and Breaking News was a product that embodied that spirit for more than five years,” Nick Ascheim, NBC News SVP of digital, said in a statement. “However, experiments eventually need to sustain themselves and in this case, despite every effort, we just weren’t able to get there.” Here’s his memo to staff:
All,
I have just let the Breaking News staff know that we have made the difficult decision to close down Breaking News. As you know, Breaking News is a suite of digital products — including a site, mobile app and well-followed Twitter feed — that deliver smart and fast alerts, and has been supported by NBC News Digital for nearly 5 years.
Breaking News has built up a large following among journalists, government workers, industries whose success depends on accurate and fast news, and news junkies of all types from around the globe. Unfortunately, despite its consumer appeal, Breaking News has not been able to generate enough revenue to sustain itself. We have therefore made the hard decision to close its operations so that we can re-invest that funding into NBC News’ core digital products to help us achieve our ambitious goals for those businesses.
Breaking News will cease operations by the end of this month. Cory Bergman and his incredibly talented team — in Seattle, LA, Chicago, New York and London — will remain with the company until late January, and we will be using the time between now and then to try and find new roles for each of them, in News or elsewhere at NBCU. We will also be working with Cory and team to incorporate the best of Breaking News’ features into other NBC News products.
I want to thank Cory and his team for all of their impressive and hard work, as well as their unyielding dedication to their craft.
Here’s the history of Breaking News, from its about page:
The Twitter account @breakingnews was launched by Michael Van Poppel in 2007, and the Msnbc Interactive Network took over the handle in a deal with Van Poppel’s BNO News in 2009. Over the next couple years, a small team inside Msnbc Interactive expanded real-time coverage to BreakingNews.com, mobile apps and new social channels. The team grew into a standalone startup called Breaking News, which was part of NBC’s acquisition of Msnbc Interactive in 2012. Today, Breaking News is part of the NBC News Digital Network.
A number of news apps have shuttered recently, including The New York Times’ NYT Now, Circa, and The Times of London’s weekly international app.
The amount of time that mobile users spend on news apps and news sites is small and appears to be decreasing (and news app use is dwarfed by social network use).
Push notifications, however — which are a hallmark of the Breaking News app — are becoming ever more important. A third of U.S. smartphone users receive news alerts on their phones, according to a study released last month by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Seventy-two percent of users who get news alerts “say they value the notifications they receive and many see alerts as a critical part of the news app proposition.”
Fox News, CNN, and local TV stations were the top sources of push notifications in the United States, the study found. Six percent of respondents said they used Breaking News.
Praise for the app, and sadness over NBC’s decision, poured out on Twitter following Bergman’s announcement. (And what’s going to happen to that presumably coveted Twitter handle?)
Fake news is alive and @BreakingNews is dead. This is ludicrous. https://t.co/KuM5JURRFJ
— Michael Roston (@michaelroston) December 8, 2016
Seriously sad. I always knew I could count on @BreakingNews to let me know what happened while I wasn’t paying attention. https://t.co/xJjcLCTKDF
— Jonathan Kealing (@JKealing) December 8, 2016
This is terrible news. Trusted sources in breaking situations. We need this now more than ever whether or not it pays the bills. https://t.co/SXblFjiibL
— cmaxmagee (@cmaxmagee) December 8, 2016
Wow. What a loss. @BreakingNews is the best place for breaking news and following developing stories. Great app too. Truly saddened by this. https://t.co/L9jl5If2l1
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) December 8, 2016
So @BreakingNews team, their excellent app and 10m Twitter followers can't make it pay. https://t.co/BnxwfKMsy7
— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) December 8, 2016
also, aggregating mobile news by location was smart. y'all probably were the first to do it https://t.co/UDci1dAkWF
— jontarius haywood (@jontarius) December 8, 2016
Screams into the darkness. Once again @NBCnews makes a bad brand and app decision. Thanks for the great work @corybe @BreakingNews team https://t.co/kAFRwfXViG
— Staci D Kramer (@sdkstl) December 8, 2016
That’s a damn shame, it’s one of the most useful, reputable, and reliable news sources I’ve relied on. https://t.co/uG1Vo6qW91
— Anthony De Rosa (@Anthony) December 8, 2016
Well, that's depressing. @BreakingNews does great, probably thankless, well-sourced reporting around major news. Cheers @corybe. https://t.co/4QrNQOHn8V
— Brian Ries (@moneyries) December 8, 2016
@corybe @Lavrusik Wait. Why does abandoning 9 milllion+ followers make sense again?
— Nick Blackhall (@NickBlackhall) December 8, 2016