Chris Licht, the executive producer of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert who also helped launch Morning Joe on MSNBC, is poised to take over the reins of CNN after the Discovery-WarnerMedia merger closes, a source confirmed.
An announcement is planned as early as next week.
Puck News first reported on Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s plans to select Licht for the job.
Licht will succeed Jeff Zucker as president of CNN, but will not be overseeing sports. Before his resignation on February 2, Zucker also had been chairman of WarnerMedia News and Sports. WarnerMedia is the parent company of CNN.
Licht had been executive producer of CBS This Morning when the network tapped him to take over Colbert’s late-night show in 2016. Less than a year later, the show, with a focus on the 2016 election and Donald Trump’s ascension to the presidency, was drawing more total viewers than its closest rival at the time, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
He’ll be taking over CNN at a time of tremendous anxiety at the network after the abrupt exit of Zucker, a figure who generated tremendous loyalty from many of its well-known anchors and correspondents. The speculation at CNN had been that Zucker would have some kind of role after the merger, but that ended after his resignation, which he said was due to his failure to disclose a “consensual relationship” with a colleague, later identified as Allison Gollust, the network’s marketing chief.
CNN’s staffers complained bitterly during staff meetings to WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar over how Zucker’s exit was handled, as well as that of Gollust, who also resigned. But Kilar announced that an investigation by a third-party law firm and former federal judge “found violations of Company policies, including CNN’s News Standards and Practices, by Jeff Zucker, Allison Gollust, and Chris Cuomo.” Zucker fired Cuomo in December as new revelations came to light over the extent to which he helped his brother, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, respond to sexual harassment allegations.
Gollust blasted the circumstances of her exit, saying that she upheld standards of journalistic integrity. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have included details of her involvement in exchanging messages with the Cuomos, and her reps have insisted that she was within the bounds of company standards.
A lot of attention — inside and outside CNN — will be on whether Licht retools the network to deemphasize one of Zucker’s legacies: the injection of more commentary, particularly by primetime hosts and especially during the presidency of Donald Trump.
There has been concern that the CNN brand, routinely derided on the right, has drifted from the more sober days of Ted Turner. John Malone, whose Liberty Media is a large Discovery shareholder, has been critical of CNN, telling CNBC in November that he “would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing.” Ironically, CNN in recent days been dominated by its extensive and often dramatic coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the kind of major breaking news story that originally put the network on the map.
Licht also will face the pending launch of CNN+, the network’s planned subscription streaming service. Although no date has been set for its debut, Zucker had made a number of high profile hires, including Chris Wallace from Fox News and Kasie Hunt from NBC News, and had lined up shows from a series of network figures including Don Lemon, Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer. While the streaming service has been heavily promoted, no exact launch date or price has been announced, while there is already speculation that it will be bundled with other WarnerMedia offerings.
Licht shares with Zucker experience in reshaping morning television, albeit in different ways.
Before Colbert, Licht relaunched CBS’ morning show, injecting newsier elements into the show along with free-flowing conversations between the hosts, Gayle King, Charlie Rose and Norah O’Donnell. Although the show remained in third place, after Good Morning America and Today, it became more relevant with its emphasis on interviews with politicians and newsmakers.
Licht, along with Joe Scarborough, co-created MSNBC’s Morning Joe, which proved to be an influential in driving media and pundit conversation for the day, what with its early morning time slot and lineup of Manhattan and Beltway figures. Taking over the timeslot from Imus in the Morning, the show quickly gained traction, overtaking CNN’s morning show even if Fox & Friends has topped the time period. CBS lured Licht to retool its morning show in 2012, and he also was named vice president of programming for the news division.
Licht authored the book What I Learned When I Almost Died: How a Maniac TV Producer Put Down His BlackBerry and Started to Live His Life, which recounted a brain hemorrhage he suffered in 2010 amid his fast-paced career.
Discovery has set March 11 for a shareholder meeting to vote on the proposed merger with WarnerMedia. The transaction already has cleared Justice Department scrutiny. Puck News reported that Licht will not start in his new role until April, when his contract with CBS expires.
— Jill Goldsmith contributed to this report.