CNN's Chris Licht Talks About His Uphill Battle

Chris Licht faces an uphill battle at CNN. 

He got the CEO gig in the midst of a prickly merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery and right after the shocking exit of beloved long-time boss, Jeff Zucker. In his first six months, he’s shut down CNN+, ousted Brian Stelter, and shuffled anchors around, including Don Lemon and Jake Tapper. This week, the network chief held an internal town hall meeting where he faced a staff of thousands and discussed upcoming layoffs. 

Shortly afterwards, he sat down with Kara — who grilled him, of course.

A key takeaway:

“The competition for me in cable is not MSNBC or Fox. Hopefully, what we’re doing is so different and unique that we are attracting people who perhaps have found cable news to be irrelevant in their lives,” Licht said.

“My competition is frankly Kathleen’s HGTV and Netflix,” Licht continued, referring to Kathleen Finch, chief officer of lifestyle brands at Discover Inc.