(New York) Warner Bros. Discovery on Wednesday named a media veteran, Britain’s Mark Thompson, who once ran the BBC and The New York Times, to head CNN in an attempt to revive the 24-hour news channel struggling for identity and leadership. audience.
At 66, Mr. Thompson succeeds the post of CEO of CNN from Chris Licht, who was challenged internally and pushed out last June, just one year after his arrival, against a backdrop of declining audiences and after a controversy surrounding a program deemed too favorable to the favorite of the Republican primary, former US President Donald Trump.
Mark Thompson will notably have the delicate mission of reviving the audiences of CNN, outdistanced by its rivals Fox News and MSNBC, during this primary and then during the presidential campaign of 2024, which promises to be electric with the upcoming trials of the Republican billionaire.
“Mark is a true innovator who has transformed two of the world’s most respected journalism institutions into the digital age,” said Warner Bros. CEO. Discovery, David Zaslav, hailing “a tremendous force for CNN and journalism at this pivotal time.”
“The world needs reliable and accurate information more than ever, and we have never had more means to meet this need at home and abroad,” added Mark Thompson, who will take office on October 9.
Managing Director of the BBC from 2004 to 2012, Thompson was then CEO of The New York Times (2012-2020), a period during which the prestigious American daily successfully transformed to adapt to the digital age and increase its subscribers (nearly 10 million in 2023).
Already in decline after the Trump era, which galvanized the audiences of continuous news channels in the United States, CNN had to fire one of its star presenters Chris Cuomo at the end of 2021, for having helped his brother Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York State, trying to counter accusations of sexual harassment.
Then his emblematic boss, Jeff Zucker, had to resign in February 2022, after the revelation of a hidden relationship with a colleague.
One of Mark Thompson’s first assignments will be spearheading the launch of CNN Max, which launched September 27 on the Max platform (ex-HBO Max), a streaming-era entry for the cable news channel.
A previous paid streaming service project, CNN, was scrapped with a loss in April 2022, just weeks after its launch, and shortly after WarnerMedia (CNN, HBO Max) merged with Discovery to form the media giant and Warner Bros. streaming. Discovery.
