As the 2024 US presidential campaign kicks off, which traditionally gives a major boost to audiences and news channel revenues, it’s not the best time to make a revolution. But, after several weeks of turmoil within the editorial staff, the CEO of CNN, Chris Licht, will leave the management of the American television channel, announced on Wednesday June 7, the Warner Bros Discovery group. Heads of CNN’s parent company have yet to name a successor.
Chris Licht had taken the reins of the oldest continuous news channel in the United States in May 2022, after the sudden departure of the emblematic boss Jeff Zucker, who had not told his leaders of his romantic relationship with a CNN executive. Since then, the 50-year-old has tried to revive the old lady of continuous news, whose audiences are suffering from competition with its conservative rival Fox News, but also with MSNBC, with a more left-wing editorial line.
He has made several changes to the program schedule, without success so far, and attempted a few media stunts, first of all the live broadcast in public with Donald Trump as a guest, in mid-May. This program was badly received by part of the public but also within the editorial staff, who saw in it a platform offered without reservation to the former president, in front of an audience of Republican sympathizers for the most part won over to his cause.
Moreover, the show’s effect on audiences was short-lived, since, a few days later, CNN slipped behind the small conservative channel Newsmax in the day’s rankings.
Clean break with his teams
Chris Licht’s position was further weakened by the publication on 2 June of a very long magazine article The Atlanticwho underlined the clear break between the leader and his teams.
“The task was not easy, especially at a time of great upheaval and transformation, and Chris put his heart into it”commented the CEO of Warner Bros Discovery, parent company of CNN, David Zaslav, in an internal note obtained by Agence France-Presse. “Unfortunately things didn’t go as we had hoped and in the end I take responsibility for that”he added.
The arrival of Chris Licht at CNN corresponded to a change of era within the channel, now part of the new unit Warner Bros Discovery, merger of the television group Discovery with its competitor Warner Bros, which also includes the HBO channel and the HBO Max streaming platform, recently rebranded as Max.
“The field of direct journalism”
Discovery boss David Zaslav, who became the merged group’s boss, imposed cost cuts and more restraint on content spending, a break for Warner Bros.
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” It’s clear that [Chris Licht] was not well regarded by the editorial staff, but the question is whether it was for his management or because he was trying to push her in a direction in which she did not want to go”asks Jeffrey McCall, a professor at DePauw University.
“Chris Licht has tried to bring CNN back to direct journalism”in a less subjective tone, continues the academic, for whom the chain “had become ideologically oriented”what “had limited their audience to the left”land already occupied by MSNBC.
“Licht and his bosses are wrong to think that people want information that is right in the middle” on the editorial level, estimated it, the editorialist Cynthia Tucker, whose tickets are taken up in several newspapers. ” If it was the case, [la chaîne publique] PBS »in a very moderate tone, “would be at the top of the hearings. »
News of Chris Licht’s departure was welcomed by Wall Street. Warner Bros. Discovery stock was up 4.50% around noon New York time.