CNN named a new president on Saturday and, according to a report in Axios, the cable news network is going to turn over a new leaf in its prime-time political coverage.
Chris Licht, formerly of Morning Joe and CBS This Morning, and now the person in charge of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, has been named to succeed Jeff Zucker.
Licht has been hired for one purpose: to bring CNN back to ratings credibility. To do that, it appears he’s going to cause a lot of liberal heads to explode in the process.
Under new chief Chris Licht, CNN will dial down the prime-time partisanship and double down on the network’s news-gathering muscle, top sources tell me.
Why it matters: Ratings are secondary to credibility, in the view of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who’s taking over CNN.
If Licht is serious, a lot of CNN stars are going to be shown the door. They were hired for their left-wing chops and if Licht wants change, they are going to be the first to go.
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It’s more than the on-air talent. The left-wing bias at CNN is cultural. Editors, producers, and executives have been raised and groomed in a culture that’s biased against conservatives, as well as derisive of rural America. It might be said they can’t help themselves when it comes to being biased. That will make any change in the network’s news slant a mirage.
Between the lines: Axios is told that Licht and Zaslav share a view that CNN was chasing prime-time ratings at the expense of the brand.
Zaslav wants to move CNN back to the middle.
CNN at all hours will emphasize the type of indispensable coverage we’ve been seeing from Ukraine — a deployment built on Zucker’s flood-the-zone, own-the story playbook, and hires including Clarissa Ward.
CNN’s footprint includes 11 U.S. bureaus and 28 internationally. Zucker invested heavily in CNN Digital, which boasts 200 million unique visitors globally each month.
The problem for Licht that was also a roadblock for Zucker is that this kind of “own the story” set-up is extraordinarily expensive. And with ad rates what they are, the only way to justify the expense is to crush the competition.
CNN has been unable to do that under Zucker. In fact, the network is losing in every major demographic. Worse, it’s unclear if viewers even want a less biased news network. But CNN wasn’t getting anywhere being a “me too” echo of MSNBC, so perhaps taking the road less traveled will work for them.
But CNN’s problems go beyond Zucker and even beyond ratings. Licht is going to need a lot of help to right the ship.
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