CNN's Jeff Zucker Calls 2016 Best Year Ever For Cable News

Jeff Zucker

Less than two weeks shy of the election, Zucker speaks with The Hollhywood Reporter about his network's winning strategy, narrowing the Fox News gap, his post-election plan and what might happen to all those political pundits.

When Jeff Zucker calls 2016 the "best year ever" for cable news, he's not being hyperbolic.

Thanks to unusually high interest in the presidential race and reality TV star turned Republican nominee Donald Trump, aggregate primetime viewership is up 50 percent, and showings among adults 25-54 are up 55 percent. But with all of the widespread wealth, the cable chief has a unique excuse to brag. Zucker heads into his first presidential election as CNN Worldwide president with cable news' most appealing ratings narrative.

Highlights:

• The soundbite: "In terms of demos, CNN is closer to Fox than we've been at any point in 15 years, and we have a bigger lead over MSNBC than we've had in the last 13 years."
• On keeping election pundits post-election: "We're going to continue to employ a number of commentators going forward. I don't think it will be at the same level that we've had this year, but we'll begin to assess that after the election."
• On the reported $100M in extra 2016 revenue for CNN: "I'm not going comment on that other than to say that NPR is a fine journalistic organization."
• On Trump TV: "I've seen a little bit of what they're doing. The beauty of the internet is that anybody can be a broadcaster now. Again, I think the future of that depends on the next 13 days."