CNN’s new chief government says the corporate must recapture the “swagger and innovation” of its early days — and that, he says, more and more means embracing a future outdoors of tv.
Mark Thompson, appointed CNN’s chief executive final fall after stints at The New York Occasions and BBC, outlined a technique to his employees Wednesday that included a company restructuring however few exterior specifics on how that transformation will happen.
As soon as a “scrappy outsider,” CNN has been gradual to reply to the fact of its main tv enterprise shrinking, Thompson mentioned in his memo. He was not made out there for an on-the-record interview with The Related Press.
“There’s currently too little innovation and risk-taking,” Thompson mentioned within the memo. “Like so many other news players with a broadcast heritage, CNN’s linear services and even its website can sometimes have an old-fashioned and unadventurous feel as if the world has changed and they haven’t.”
CNN must observe the viewers, and smartphones are the place most individuals beneath 40 first flip for information, he mentioned.
To alter the considering, Thompson mentioned the present nationwide, worldwide and digital groups must be mixed into one unit, beneath the management of Virginia Moseley as government editor. Mike McCarthy will grow to be CNN’s managing editor.
Atlanta-based CNN can be hiring Alex MacCallum, at present chief income officer at The Washington Put up, as an government in control of digital tasks and companies.
That’s the place Thompson, identified for establishing the digital subscription service that reworked the Occasions as a enterprise the previous decade, will search for sustained income at CNN. It’s not clear whether or not it will imply a paid subscription service or different merchandise.
Prior to now, CNN hasn’t at all times “gone the extra mile to squeeze every bit of value from the outstanding news and other intellectual property we create,” he wrote. “No longer.”
He mentioned the CNN.com website wants “drastic modernization.” The community additionally wants a number of digital tasks to enrich the CNN Max streaming service, he mentioned.
With cord-cutting, the viewers for cable tv within the U.S. has fallen by one-fifth previously two years, he mentioned. CNN’s full-day scores averaged 479,000 in 2023, down 15% from a yr earlier. Fox Information Channel’s 1.22 million was down 18% and MSNBC’s 780,000 was up 6%, in accordance with the Nielsen firm.
Thompson mentioned CNN’s tv personalities should discover multiplatform audiences, and praised Anderson Cooper’s “All There Is” podcast about grief.
