Chris Licht has resigned as chairman and CEO of CNN, the news organization's parent company declared on Wednesday, bringing an end to a turbulent tenure that garnered national media attention - including a lengthy profile in The Atlantic - and raised concerns about the future of the company.
Licht, 51, a television producer who ascended through the ranks of the media industry, assumed control of CNN in February 2022, following the precipitous resignation of Jeff Zucker, who had failed to disclose a consensual relationship with a colleague.
Trump's CNN Town Hall Backlash
CNN will be led by a "interim leadership team" comprised of executives Amy Entelis, Virginia Moseley, and Eric Sherling, as well as the organization's newly appointed chief operating officer, David Leavy, according to Zaslav.
When Licht assumed control of CNN, he sought to distinguish himself from Zucker, who had clashed publicly with former President Donald Trump. Licht, following a directive from Zaslav, reportedly attempted to bring the news brand to the political center and make it more appealing to conservative viewers and Republican newsmakers.
He also introduced a new morning program co-hosted by Don Lemon, who was dismissed in April after an article in Variety detailed allegations that he had mistreated female colleagues.
Lemon, who also received criticism for on-air remarks implying that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is not "in her heyday" because she is in her 50s, denied the allegations.
Licht has been under intensified scrutiny in recent months, as CNN's prime-time ratings have declined and the new morning program has struggled. He found himself in a position that few news executives would desire: at the center of the story, as per NBC News.
Following the Trump town hall debacle, however, CNN employees' animosity towards Licht grew considerably. Trump's characterization of Collins as a "nasty person" was greeted with cheers and roars of pleasure from the audience.
Per NY Daily News, Licht defended the "masterful" broadcast despite the barrage of criticism the town hall received and took a blatant shot at CNN media correspondent Oliver Darcy's criticism of the event.
Licht drew even more ire from the staff after he reprimanded Darcy for his publicly damning assessment of the broadcast the day following the town hall. The consequences did not end there.
The calamitous town hall on CNN alienated viewers, who began leaving the network almost immediately. CNN began losing primetime hours on a regular basis to the MAGA channel Newsmax, which had previously attracted a fraction of CNN's audience.
The turmoil at CNN's top comes as television news networks struggle to make a strategy to combat the decline of their traditional cable business in an era when streaming services have eroded their ratings and revenue.
Through years of cord-cutting, the number of households receiving cable and satellite services has decreased, resulting in a decline in the fees networks collect from cable operators.
Chris Licht Tenure as CNN's CEO
Licht was recruited to replace Jeff Zucker, who lead CNN during the turbulent Trump era but was forced to resign after failing to disclose an intimate relationship with a fellow executive.
Licht, who was an executive at CBS at the time, made his reputation as a master programmer, helping to mold Stephen Colbert's late-night talk show and directing the successful overhaul of CBS's morning show. While at NBC, he also helped establish MSNBC's 'Morning Joe.'
He was one of Zaslav's first significant appointments after he assumed leadership of the new conglomerate formed by the April 2022 merger between CNN's former parent company, WarnerMedia, and Discovery Inc., the owner of multiple cable networks.
According to a source with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to comment, Zaslav recruited Licht, who had never supervised a staff as large as CNN's, without interviewing any other candidates.
Licht, who was named the new CNN CEO at the end of February 2022, had the unenviable task of announcing Warner Bros. Discovery's cancellation of CNN Plus, the company's $100 million-a-month streaming service, prior to his official start date.
Licht, in his new position, inherited a staff that remained largely loyal to Zucker, who had helped advance the careers of numerous prominent on-air personalities and awarded them lucrative contracts.
He was also aligned with Zaslav in his mission to make the network a more palatable forum for conservatives, as evidenced by the fact that he made an effort to rebrand the network as a moderate forum by scheduling more Republican guests.
Licht's subsequent dismissal of prominent journalists John Harwood and Brian Stelter sent shockwaves through the newsroom, as many interpreted it as an indication that the new CNN would forsake the aggressive and frequently opinionated tone of the Zucker era.
He also supervised a series of massive reductions that sapped employee morale and damaged his credibility with workers. During his year at CNN, ratings plummeted to all-time lows, and he lagged behind competitors who were also coping with a general decline in cable-news viewership as the Trump administration gave way to the subdued Biden administration.
In 2022, CNN's average daytime ratings fell by one-third compared to the previous year, to an average of 735,000 viewers; by comparison, Fox News and MSNBC saw ratings declines of 14 and 22 percent, respectively. On some evenings, the ratings for the fledgling conservative network Newsmax surpassed those for CNN, according to The Washington Post via MSN.
