New CNN Boss Looks to Monetize News Offerings

When he took over as the network’s chief executive in October, Mark Thompson warned staff that CNN was nowhere near ready for the future and needed to step up its digital game. One hundred days later, he is laying the groundwork to do that. 

The Wall Street Journal reports the first step, outlined in a memo Wednesday, is to combine all of CNN’s newsgathering operations into one unit that will serve its TV, streaming and digital platforms, while creating a division tasked with exploring growth opportunities.

Mark Thompson

In an interview, Thompson said he was also looking to monetize CNN’s offerings, potentially through subscriptions, and wanted to find a better way to show video news on phones.

“I don’t think anyone’s yet cracked the code on how that translates, truly translates to a great news experience,” Thompson said, adding that he wants to take better advantage of a vertical format that is popular with younger consumers. He said that if CNN “can figure out a way of doing that and make sure it’s a high quality, differentiated product,” people should be willing to pay for it. 

“For many people today, the smartphone is a more important device for consuming news than the TV,” Thompson wrote in Wednesday’s memo. “Their news prime time is in the morning, not the evening.”

There has been speculation Thompson would reprise the playbook he used when he led the New York Times, by launching subscription products focused on areas like travel and health. He says that is not his plan, though those are interesting ideas. “I think we need to look at it honestly—I think you might want to start with news,” Thompson said, describing it as the “central proposition that the CNN brand brings to mind.” 

Thompson didn’t announce any concrete plans for new products or specific business models. “This stuff takes time,” he said.

He said the CNN.com website needs “drastic modernization.” The network also needs multiple digital projects to complement the CNN Max streaming service, he said.

With cord-cutting, the audience for cable television in the U.S. has fallen by one-fifth in the past two years, he said. CNN’s full-day ratings averaged 479,000 in 2023, down 15% from a year earlier. Fox News Channel’s 1.22 million was down 18% and MSNBC’s 780,000 was up 6%, according to the Nielsen company.