Report: CNN Needs Coherent Digital Strategy

Chris Licht, who left the network Wednesday after just over a year in the role, struggled with leadership style, lifting morale, programming decisions, how to cover former President Donald Trump and, ultimately, too much self-confidence.

According to CNBC, Licht’s entire tenure at CNN could have turned out differently had he persuaded Zaslav to keep CNN+.

That may sound absurd. Hardly anyone watched CNN+ during its first two weeks of existence last year. Zaslav and several other Discovery executives, including current Warner Bros. Discovery head of streaming JB Perrette and now-CNN Chief Operating Officer David Leavy, were skeptical of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on niche or half-baked content ideas like “Jake Tapper’s Book Club” and “Parental Guidance with Anderson Cooper.” Leavy is now part of the executive team that will help Zaslav find a new CEO.

Chris Licht

Zaslav thought CNN+ was a waste of resources for a company saddled with $50 billion of debt that needed to boost free cash flow and generate $3 billion in merger-related synergies. But before he made any decisions, he wanted to hear Licht’s thoughts.

Licht was supposed to begin his job May 2, 2022, but he started a few weeks early to weigh in on CNN+. In several virtual conferences, he met with CNN+ head Andrew Morse, CNN+ general manager Alex MacCallum and CNN Chief Tech Officer Robyn Peterson, according to people familiar with the matter who declined to be identified due to the private nature of the talks. Perrette and Discovery streaming CFO Neil Chugani (who would become CNN’s CFO) were also there.

Licht expressed his skepticism with the product’s programming, according to people in the meeting. The discussion centered around the viability of offering a product named after CNN without actually featuring a live feed of the network’s cable programming. Perrette told the CNN+ leadership to pause all marketing spending and not to launch on Roku.

While the CNN+ team came away from the meetings assuming the streaming service would likely be killed, they sent financials to Discovery’s leadership. They budgeted to spend $440 million in 2022 and $550 million in 2023, the people said. The proposal called for CNN+ to turn a profit by 2025 and break even on the cumulative investment by 2028.

Less than three weeks later, CNN+ was dead. A Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson declined to comment on the details of the meetings.

Had Licht persuaded the Discovery executives to keep CNN+, it’s possible his tenure at CNN would have developed differently.

Licht’s background is show producing. He launched “Morning Joe” on MSNBC and jumpstarted “Late Night with Stephen Colbert” on CBS. CNN+ would have given him a canvas to create shows from scratch. It also would have given him a growth story to pitch to the press and investors. 

In his year on the job, Licht laid off hundreds of employees and mostly shifted around existing CNN anchors and reporters to build a new morning show and prime-time programming. His experiment to move prime-time anchor Don Lemon to the morning failed. CNN fired Lemon in April. Licht attempted to move Tapper, an afternoon anchor, to prime time, but the early ratings weren’t good and Tapper wanted to keep his time slot, so Licht scrapped his plans.