Today it is being reported that the head of CNN Chris Licht is out following poor ratings and unhappy staff forced him out of his job. This was announced by Warner Bros. Discovery’s CEO David Zaslav.
This comes as CNN has been struggling in the ratings and amount the big three news channels, it has fallen to 3rd place.
This news comes as CNN is looking to cut costs to handle the drop in revenue. Recently it was announced that CNN would move out of its headquarters in Atlanta to a cheaper location.
This past March, CNN’s primetime audience decreased by 61 percent, averaging only 473,000 viewers. Many news networks are seeing declining numbers but to put CNN’s numbers into perspective, Fox News Channel dropped 27 percent while MSNBC lost 12 percent of viewers. The two networks averaged significantly higher audience numbers, with Fox News Channel holding at 2.09 million and MSNBC averaging 1.14 million primetime viewers.
Chris Licht says he takes full responsibility for the ratings at CNN.
CNN also recently announced the company is bringing on David Leavy as its new Chief Operating Officer. He will be in charge of commercial, operational, and promotional operations for CNN Worldwide starting June 20th, 2023.
David Leavy is currently the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN. He has been with the company since before Discovery merged with Warner Bros. Leavy will report directly to Christ Licht, Chairman of CNN, who will be focusing on managing the programming and editorial direction of the network.
His replacement will reportedly be Amy Entelis, an Executive CP of talent at CNN. Licht became the head of CNN in May of 2022, and now just over a year later, he is out.