CNN Chairman and Chief Executive Chris Licht has stepped down from the media company, effective immediately, CNN's parent company Warner Bros. Discovery said on Wednesday, June 7.
Warner
Bros said that it put in place an interim leadership team including Amy
Entelis, EVP of talent and content development; Virginia Moseley, EVP of
editorial; and Eric Sherling, EVP of US programming, as well as David Leavy,
chief operating officer, on the commercial side.
Before
his sack, Licht had been in the job for just 13 months.
The
move comes less than a week after the Atlantic magazine published a critical
report about Licht.
Licht was criticized for the network's decision to broadcast a May 10 town hall
with former Republican President Donald Trump, during which Trump repeated
falsehoods about his 2020 election loss, said that if elected he would pardon
many supporters convicted of taking part in a Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S.
Capitol, and called CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins a "nasty person."
CNN's ratings have been going down the last couple of years despite the
company's attempts to get more Republican viewers.
In
an email to staff on Wednesday, Warner Bros. Discovery President and Chief
Executive David Zaslav wrote that the company will be conducting a wide search,
internally and externally, for a new leader.
“This job was never going to be easy, especially at a time of great disruption
and transformation, and Chris poured his heart and soul into it," Zaslav
wrote.
He added: "Unfortunately, things did not work out the way we had hoped –
and ultimately that’s on me.”
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