CNN names former BBC and New York Times government Mark Thompson as new chief

NEW YORK (AP) — CNN is bringing in a former chief government of the BBC and The New York Times in an try to show round a information group that has burned by way of two leaders and bled viewers over the previous two years.

Mark Thompson was appointed as chair and CEO of CNN by David Zaslav, head of the community’s mum or dad firm, Warner Bros. Discovery, which made the announcement Wednesday. Thompson replaces Chris Licht, who was fired in June, and a four-person staff that had been working CNN within the interim.

Thompson, who left the Times in 2020 after eight years as that firm’s president and CEO, is credited with reworking it to a digital-first group extra depending on paid subscribers than the collapsing promoting market that has doomed many newspapers. The England native was director-general of the BBC from 2004 to 2012.

Licht was let go after a stormy 13 months that noticed CNN fall nicely behind Fox News and MSNBC in reputation, with opinionated information connecting extra with viewers in a politically polarized time. He had inspired CNN to discover a center floor and flex its newsgathering muscle tissues.

He was doomed on the finish by a damning Atlantic journal profile that confirmed his failure to attach with many staff, many loyal to his predecessor, Jeff Zucker. Zucker was pushed out in February 2022 after failing to confide in his bosses a romantic relationship with a fellow community government.

Besides scores, CNN’s funds have suffered. The community earned $892 in revenue in 2022, down from $1.08 billion in 2020, in accordance with S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Shortly after Licht was named to his new job, CNN’s new company masters pulled the plug on a well-publicized streaming service after solely weeks in operation. Just this month, it introduced that CNN information could be a part of its Max streaming service.

CNN additionally fired two well-liked prime-time hosts over the previous two years, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, the latter after an ill-fated transfer to a brand new morning present.

Licht by no means settled on a brand new prime-time lineup in his tenure. The four-person interim management staff — Amy Entelis, David Leavy, Virginia Moseley and Eric Sherling — lately set a brand new lineup that features Kaitlan Collins, Abby Phillip and Laura Coates in weeknight roles, with veteran Christiane Amanpour and Chris Wallace getting new weekend gigs.