Chris Licht is out as CNN’s CEO after a short-lived tenure at the network after failing to boost their ratings.
According to the Washington Examiner:
Licht, who started his position in May 2022, has been embroiled in criticism internally and externally as he attempted to win back trust in the media organization by repositioning the network.
Warner Bros. Discovery did not announce a full time replacement for Licht but said that it has a "strong interim leadership team" to lead the cable network in the meantime.
Earlier Wednesday morning, CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy confirmed Licht was out after various reports suggested the CNN boss had stepped down.
Licht couldn’t catch a break - being criticized both for failing to reverse the networks ratings slump, while also sparking an internal revolt the brief time he did in hosting Donald Trump for a town hall event. While cable news ratings were down early this year compared to last, CNN suffered the biggest decline. As of March 2023, year-over-year ratings had been down 27% for Fox and 12% for MSNBC, but a massive 61% for CNN.
Just days ago The Atlantic ran a scathing profile of Licht, portraying him as a “a thin-skinned, aloof executive who is isolated from employees who no longer trust his leadership,” which seems to have been the final nail in the coffin for his career at CNN.
After failing to revive CNN, an impossible task, Licht will hopefully move on to more practical goals, such as catching fish in the desert, or solving the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Matt Palumbo is the author of Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers: How the Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry and The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
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