CNN hit with 6% staff cut as network sets a plan for a digital future
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CNN is cutting 6% of its workforce as the news organization tries to reinvent itself for TV’s digital future.
Facing an exodus of viewers and a systemic decline in pay TV subscriptions, the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned news channel said Thursday it will cut 200 employees from the TV side of the business while investing in the digital operation.
“The changes we’re announcing today are part of an ongoing response by this great news organization to profound shifts in the way audiences in America consume news,” CNN Chairman Mark Thompson told employees in a memo.
Thompson said parent company Warner Bros. Discovery has committed $70 million to the effort to develop new subscription-driven digital products.
The plans for reinvention include the development of a direct-to-consumer CNN product that. “It’s the early days, but we’ve already established that there’s immense demand for it not just in America but around the world,” Thompson wrote.
The cuts were widely expected as CNN has seen its ratings drop since 2021 while cord cutting steadily erodes the revenue source that pay TV subscriptions provide.
At a recent defamation trial that CNN lost and then settled, the network presented financial data that showed the network’s revenue declined by 20% percent between 2021 and 2023.
Thompson said the network is looking to generate $1 billion in digital revenue by 2030. The executive added that the hiring for the digital side of the business will eventually offset the head count losses for the TV operation.
The former White House correspondent was once banned from the briefing room by the Trump administration. CNN wants to move his program to midnight.
The move is the company’s response to the shift away from traditional TV by young viewers who have turned to streaming video and other online sources for news.
CNN has gone through several waves of layoffs since it became a part of Warner Bros. Discovery in 2022.
CNN is not the only TV organization facing financial pressures from the changing television landscape. Staff cuts are anticipated at ABC News and NBC News, although they are not expected to be near the scale of the CNN workforce reductions.
CNN is also shaking up the program schedule of its cable channel. Longtime anchor Wolf Blitzer is moving out of his 6 p.m. Eastern time and displacing “CNN Newsroom” with Jim Acosta.
“The Situation Room” with Blitzer and Pamela Brown will air from 10 a.m. to noon Eastern.
Acosta remains in talks with CNN over an offer to anchor a new live two-hour program starting at midnight, when cable news typically offers repeats of broadcasts from earlier in the evening.
Other changes include former NPR host Audie Cornish as host of “CNN This Morning” at 6 a.m. Cornish was hired in 2022 for the short-lived CNN+ streaming service.
Kasie Hunt will move to 4 p.m. Eastern to anchor “The Arena,” while “The Lead With Jake Tapper” moves to 5 p.m.
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