CNN names Mark Thompson its next CEO

CNN announced on Wednesday that Mark Thompson, the former CEO of The New York Times Co. and director general of the BBC, would be its next chair and CEO.

Thompson will start on Oct. 9, Warner Bros. Discovery, the network’s parent company, said in a news release.

“Mark has a formidable record, and I have long admired his leadership and ability to inspire organizations to raise their own ambitions and sense of what’s possible — and achieve it,” David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, wrote to colleagues Wednesday morning. “I am confident he is exactly the leader we need to take the helm of CNN at this pivotal time.”

CNN, one of the world’s leading news organizations, has been buffeted by a nearly endless string of crises for the last 18 months. Ratings have plunged, profits have fallen, and the network is still reeling from Chris Licht’s tenure as CEO, which was terminated in June amid sagging staff morale.

Since Licht’s ouster, the network has been run by three veterans of CNN — Amy Entelis, Virginia Moseley and Eric Sherling — as well as David Leavy, who is a longtime lieutenant of Zaslav.

In his note, Zaslav thanked the four leaders who steered CNN after Licht’s departure and acknowledged the turmoil that the network’s staff has endured. Warner Bros. Discovery said in its statement they would continue in their roles, reporting to Thompson.

“I want to say that I recognize change is not easy, and I know you’ve been through a lot of it,” Zaslav wrote.

Thompson, 66, joins the network with more experience running a sprawling news organization than Licht, a former morning and late-night show producer.

Thompson started as a trainee at the BBC in 1979 and ascended to the position of director general, the broadcaster’s top position, in 2004. He joined the Times Co. as its CEO in 2012, and was among a group of executives who revitalized the company financially by greatly expanding its digital subscription business.

When Thompson took over at the Times Co., a subscriber-only paywall for the paper’s website was still in its infancy. In his early days at the company, he said in an interview with a British publication two years ago, he was met with “skepticism” that it was possible to significantly expand the number of digital subscribers.

“I just thought we weren’t doing it well enough,” he said. “And we weren’t doing it smart enough. And we weren’t using data properly.”

The Times now has nearly 10 million subscribers, more than 9 million of them digital-only. Thompson left the company in 2020, and was replaced by Meredith Kopit Levien, who has expanded the subscription strategy.

In a note to CNN staff on Wednesday, Thompson acknowledged that broadcast journalism was going through “peak disruption.”

“We face pressure from every direction — structural, political, cultural, you name it,” he wrote. “Like many other media organizations, CNN has recently felt some of the uncertainty and heartache that comes with all of that. There’s no magic wand that I or anyone else can wield to make this disruption go away.”

He continued: “But what I can say is that where others see threat, I see opportunity — especially given CNN’s great brand and the strength of its journalism.”

Thompson, who will report to Zaslav, told CNN staff that he was planning to “pop in a few times before” his October start date.

A top challenge at CNN will be its transition to a more digital-focused future as the cable business declines.

Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it would introduce a dedicated CNN channel on Max, the company’s streaming service, in late September. Unlike its cable and broadcast news competitors, CNN Max will simulcast at least three flagship shows — hosted by Jake Tapper, Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper — from its parent network.

Thompson will also have to steady the nerves of a network with more than 4,000 employees worldwide.

In December 2021, CNN’s leading prime-time star, Chris Cuomo, was fired during an ethics inquiry. Two months later, CNN chair Jeff Zucker was abruptly pushed out of the network for failing to disclose a romantic relationship with a colleague. By April 2022, just days after the creation of Warner Bros. Discovery, Zaslav and senior executives quickly pulled the plug on CNN+, an expensive streaming platform that Zucker had intended to represent the network’s digital future.

This year, Don Lemon, the prime-time anchor turned morning show host, was fired not long after he made ageist and sexist comments. Then in May, Licht oversaw a televised forum with former President Donald Trump that was roundly criticized, including publicly by the CNN eminence Christiane Amanpour.

Over the last two months, the four people running the network have made programming changes, including installing a full-time anchor for CNN’s morning show and completing a prime-time lineup that had been in flux for more than a year. Thompson was not involved with those changes, according to two people familiar with the recruitment process, though he was briefed on them.

Amid all the turmoil, viewership has fallen sharply. In August, MSNBC widened its weekday prime-time ratings lead over CNN to its biggest margin since February 2020. Fox News’s lead is even bigger.