BREAKING! CNN CEO Steps Down

CNN CEO Chris Licht has reportedly stepped down after  he failed to turn around the long-troubled news network.

This report was confirmed by Fox News Digital  on Wednesday.

“I have great respect for Chris, personally and professionally,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in a statement.

“The job of leading CNN was never going to be easy, especially at a time of huge disruption and transformation, and he has poured his heart and soul into it,”

Zaslav continued. “While we know we have work to do as we look to identify a new leader, we have absolute confidence in the team we have in place and will continue to fight for CNN and its world class journalism.”

Licht was hand-picked by Zaslav in 2022 to replace Jeff Zucker, who was forced out ahead of a long-planned merger that put CNN under Zaslav’s control. Now Licht is out of a job after just over a year, and the future of Zaslav’s CNN remains unclear. CNN executives Amy Entelis, Virginia Moseley, and Eric Sherling are expected to serve as the acting leadership team, along with new Chief Operating Officer David Leavy.

Licht made it clear he wanted to “tamp down spectacle” that was rampant during the Zucker era. He toned down the use of the network’s breaking news graphics, fired left-leaning figures like John Harwood and Brian Stelter, and reached out to Republican lawmakers who had been alienated by the prior regime’s approach. But liberal staffers who craved the Zucker-era partisan tone never embraced Licht, who came to CNN from CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

He was regularly attacked by liberal media critics and his tenure was plagued with internal leaks from CNN staffers. He was also forced to make difficult choices, such as axing the costly CNN+ streaming service, a widely panned Zucker-era product that puzzled onlookers and insiders from the start, and undertake company-ordered layoffs.

Some of Licht’s biggest wounds were self-inflicted, though.

Licht, who was known as a wunderkind producer who helped create MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and revitalized CBS’ morning program, then announced that CNN’s morning show would be “re-imagined.”

He eventually built an AM show around host Don Lemon, another left-wing figure who survived Licht’s initial purges but failed to mesh well with co-hosts Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow. The show was known more for its on- and off-air melodrama than its actual coverage.