Chris Licht, Chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide.
Courtesy: CNN
Chris Licht is out at CNN after main the information community for a bit greater than a yr, in keeping with an individual accustomed to the matter.
The chief govt’s departure comes as he confronted a riot amongst CNN’s expertise and workers. His tenure was riddled with programming missteps and rock-bottom rankings.
He drew much more heated criticism in latest weeks after the community hosted a city corridor with Donald Trump that was full of scores of the previous president’s cheering followers. Whereas the occasion drew 3.3 million viewers, CNN’s rankings plummeted afterward. Two days after the city corridor, CNN’s primetime viewership got here in beneath proper wing outlet Newsmax, a a lot smaller community.
But it surely was an unflattering 15,000-word profile of Licht in The Atlantic which may have sealed his destiny. He apologized to staffers Monday morning, however prime brass at CNN’s dad or mum firm, Warner Bros. Discovery, together with CEO David Zaslav, weren’t pleased with the article and the aftermath.
The transfer comes quickly after David Leavy, a key Zaslav ally, was named the community’s new chief working officer. Leavy was tasked with taking up advertising, public relations, promoting gross sales, services and different logistics.
The transfer was meant to permit Licht to focus extra on programming. Licht helped launch MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” as its govt producer in 2007 and later turned govt producer and showrunner of “The Late Present with Stephen Colbert” on CBS.
That is breaking information. Examine again for updates.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the dad or mum firm of MSNBC and CNBC.
