CNN Chairman and CEO Chris Licht is stepping down, parent company Warner Bros. Discovery said on Wednesday.
In his 13-month tenure, Chris Licht vowed to institute down-the-middle coverage but faced backlash over decisions such as a recent town hall event with former President Donald Trump.
Licht’s firing comes exactly one month after he engineered the network’s controversial Town Hall special with the GOP Presidential front-runner.
Chris Licht made a play for Trump’s base, and did draw more than 3 million viewers that night … but the blowback from CNN’s viewership and Democrats in D.C. was severe. The network’s ratings plummeted in the days after the Trump special.
CNN anchor Kate Bolduan drew the honours Wednesday morning of announcing Licht’s firing on the air. It wasn’t quite a “ding dong, the wicked witch is dead” moment, but, make no mistake, Licht had ruffled a lot of feathers at the network.
Last week, he was also the subject of a pretty unflattering profile piece in The Atlantic, and he reportedly apologized to CNN staffers earlier this week.
Licht took over at CNN in May 2022, after Jeff Zucker’s resignation. During his tenure, he clashed several times with Don Lemon over his on-air commentary and even his wardrobe, and Licht finally fired him back in April.
Warner Discovery, CNN’s parent company, says a panel of execs, including new COO David Leavy, will run the network until a new CEO is appointed.