CNN president Jeff Zucker, who helped the news outlet become the dominant name in cable news, intends to go away from the media organization at the top of the year.
“This organization has been through tons. I’d wish to be here to urge us all back to a replacement normal, one that feels far more love it once did around here,” Zucker said during a Thursday call with CNN producers that was obtained by Variety. “So, as a result, I'm getting to stay and finish my current contract — which, as I said, will keep me here until the top of this year. At that time, I do expect to maneuver on.”
It is unclear who will replace Zucker. A representative from CNN parent company WarnerMedia didn't return an invitation for comment.
Zucker, who joined CNN in 2013, helped catapult the outlet to the highest of the cable news game during Donald Trump’s presidency. CNN broke its viewership records in 2020 and outperformed longtime rating leader Fox News within the key 25-54 age demographic in Q4. CNN’s rating success has continued into the new year: January 2021 marked CNN’s most-watched month on record, helped partially by the outlet’s coverage of the pro-Donald Trump mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
CNN wasn't a rating powerhouse when Zucker joined the outlet. As CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter wrote on Thursday, the news industry was rife with stories about CNN’s “identity crisis” in 2013, when Fox News and MSNBC were cable’s top news channels. Zucker’s hiring led to a reinvention of the network’s coverage and resulted in several new initiatives, like various government building programs and documentaries. Prime-time anchors like Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon, and Anderson Cooper became as well-known as Hollywood stars thanks to their political coverage and commentary, while CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta has become one among the foremost recognizable faces of coronavirus coverage over the last year.
“I do think that there was this sense at CNN that they had to be neutral to the purpose of bland, and what I feel we instilled as a team was that what you needed to try to do is tell the reality,” Zucker told the l. a. Times, which broke the news about Zucker’s decision. “We gave the anchors, reporters, and producers of our shows the liberty to inform the reality, albeit the reality came off as tough sometimes.”
Though CNN thrived during the 2016 presidential election and Trump’s ensuing presidency, the network’s success under Zucker wasn't without controversy. CNN received criticism during the 2016 presidential election season for airing large numbers of Trump rallies — which were major draws for news channels — without edits or fact-checking. Zucker said it had been an error to try to do so in October 2016. Zucker’s relationship with Trump has been complicated; Zucker, who previously worked as president of NBC Entertainment, greenlit Trump’s “The Apprentice” in 2004, which significantly raised the national profile of the eventual president. As CNN’s coverage of Trump toughened, the outlet became one among Trump’s primary targets in his frequent rants against the media during his presidency.
CNN, which is understood for its myriad pundits, also received criticism for hiring former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a political commentator three days after he was fired from Trump’s election campaign; Lewandowski resigned several months later. CNN’s hiring of Sarah Isgur, who served as the spokesperson for former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, as political editor in 2019 generated similar controversy and her role was swiftly changed to a political analyst.
Controversies aside, Zucker’s leadership has reaped record viewership and financial gains for CNN and it's unclear how his departure will affect the media organization.
Zucker’s exit has been expected; The Wall Street Journal reported in Oct. 2020 that the CNN president was considering leaving the network shortly after the 2020 election, despite his contract running through the top of 2021. The Journal’s report suggested that Zucker was “blindsided” by restructures at WarnerMedia, which was acquired by AT&T in 2018 and had “friction” with WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar. Zucker is one among the few WarnerMedia executives who have stayed with the corporate following the AT&T acquisition.
Although CNN entered 2021 because the leader of cable news ratings, cable television is constant to say no in popularity as more consumers move to stream services. WarnerMedia invested significantly in its HBO Max streaming service, which launched in May 2020, but the service has been slow to realize traction and industry analysts partially blamed its failures on WarnerMedia’s large wave of layoffs that were enacted several months ago. The l. a. Times reported that Zucker was concerned that CNN could become a target for cost-cutting.
Though news programming is essentially untested on leading streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+, newer services like NBCUniversal’s Peacock and HBO Max have dabbled within the genre; a couple of CNN-branded series and films are available on the latter service. The NY Times’ report on Zucker’s decision to step down included a note that a CNN-branded streaming service is in development but no details that platform is officially announced.
Zucker is one among several high-profile media executives who have announced their intent to step down following the 2020 presidential election. Former MSNBC president Phil Griffin was succeeded by Rashida Jones on February 1, while Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron and ABC News president James Goldston recently announced their intent to step down later within the year.
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