Chris Licht’s brief, complicated, and chaotic tenure as head of CNN is over. Warner Bros. Discovery announced in a statement Wednesday that the President and CEO of CNN Worldwide has resigned, effective immediately. “The job of running CNN has never been easy,” said Chief Executive David Zaslav, president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery. The departure comes weeks after a controversial live interview with Donald Trump and a scathing profile of him was published in The Atlantic.
Licht assumed his role in May 2022 after a successful career at CBS News and MSNBC. He replaced Jeff Zucker at the chain and was forced to resign in early 2022 after it was revealed he had concealed a relationship with an employee. He came to CNN at a time when the network was going through an existential crisis. Viewership for Donald Trump’s presidency had declined during Joe Biden’s duller tenure, and Fox News gained market share at his expense, a problem that worsened during his tenure.
In his year at the helm of the news network, he made some controversial decisions. He arrived with plans under his arm to shut down CNN+, the subscription news channel project abandoned by the company’s executives. His major programming venture was a morning show, This Morning, with three presenters: Poppy Harlow, Kaitlan Collins and Don Lemon. Audiences were unresponsive and the show has been a flop since it started last October, but things got worse when he said of Republican nominee Nikki Haley, 51, that she was “past her prime ‘ and that ‘A woman is at the age of 20 and 30, maybe at 40, in the prime of her life.
He was suspended and stayed away from cameras for a few days while he completed a training program. It took off again on February 21, but it didn’t last long. On the same day that Fox News fired its big star Tucker Carlson, CNN dropped Lemon with little explanation.
The resignation comes just weeks after an interview with Donald Trump was broadcast to a supportive live audience, a format that favored the former president and one in which he felt comfortable spreading his lies. But it also comes after The Atlantic published a lengthy report on the manager detailing the failure of his attempt to straighten the chain’s run. Licht made detailed statements to the author of the profile, in which he was critical of the chain he led.
His approach was that the station had strayed from its informative DNA and had become overly ideologized in the Trump era. In The Atlantic’s profile, he criticized the coverage of events such as the pandemic and other editorial decisions. He also spoke about the decision to give Trump a voice on the show, in which the former president insulted the host while the audience applauded him. The publication of the article last Friday hit CNN like a bomb and caused displeasure in the newsroom.
It was surprising and considered a misjudgment that he agreed to participate in the profile with his statements, although it was devastating for him: “Light lived on an island surrounded by people who didn’t like him, didn’t he who doubted his vision for the company, or that he questioned his competition, or that he was directly for its downfall,” reads the report by journalist Tim Alberta, who worked for months and had the opportunity to interview him multiple times managing director.
Licht apologized Monday to CNN staffers for taking the spotlight, and in a negative way. Those apologies didn’t help him salvage his position as he lost the support of who had previously protected him, Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav.
“I have a lot of respect for Chris, personally and professionally,” Zaslav said in the statement. “The task of leading CNN has never been easy, especially during a time of tremendous upheaval and change, and he put his heart and soul into it. While we know we have a lot of work ahead of us in finding a new leader, we have absolute confidence in the team we have and will continue to fight for CNN and its world-class journalism.”
Warner Bros. announced that while it is actively searching for a replacement, Warner Bros. has hired an interim collegiate management team consisting of Amy Entelis, executive vice president of talent and content development; Executive Vice President of Editorial Virginia Moseley and Executive Vice President of US Programming Eric Sherling and Chief Operating Officer David Leavy on the business. The transition process can take months.