CNN is facing a turning point in 2023, after a bruising year that brought significant change to the network’s corporate structure, editorial leadership and programming.
People inside and around the network for much of 2022 have described a feeling of unease, which was punctuated by a round of layoffs rolled out in December by new president Chris Licht.
Licht is the new man in charge at the cable news giant, tasked with increasing the network’s dipping profitability amid a bleak economic outlook for all major news organizations.
Licht took over in May, replacing Jeff Zucker following the company’s sale to media conglomerate Discovery. One of Licht’s first tasks was shuttering its heavily promoted paid subscription streaming service, CNN+, less than a month after it launched.
The failure of CNN+ underlined the corporate divisions that have made Licht’s job so difficult. CNN’s previous management was sold on the new streaming service, but its new leaders were against it even as they negotiated to buy the larger TimeWarner from AT&T.
The CNN+ move, which reportedly caused hundreds of employees to lose their jobs, was unsettling to many inside the network and prompted Licht to say at the time he did not anticipate further cuts at the outlet.
But it was an inauspicious start that is haunting the network and Licht heading into 2023.
“I still don’t think there’s any confidence in him, that he can articulate a vision, or that he can take us where he says he wants to go,” one source at the network told The Hill this week. “And no matter how hard he tries, he’s not going to disabuse anyone of the notion of more layoffs coming in 2023.”
Licht has acknowledged the underlying anxiety at the network, telling the journalist Kara Swisher in a November interview such apprehension is “completely understandable,” given what has transpired since he took over.
“Look, that’s the beauty of working with journalists,” Licht said. “They want to know what’s the plan? This is a group of people that will follow me to the end of the earth if they believe I know what the hell I’m doing and that there’s a plan.”
