Staying with CNN, but will be doing podcasts for Global (a British radio company) as well.
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https://puck.news/cnns-uncertain-future-amid-wbd-spinoff-plans/ [PAYWALLED]
When David Zaslav restructured Warner Bros. Discovery late last year, splitting his declining cable networks off from the growth-oriented streaming and studios business and the ever-prestigious HBO, the implications were self-evident ⌠anyone with a rudimentary grasp of the industryâs trajectory, and WBDâs place in it, knew he was taking the first step toward spinning off the linear assets, just as NBCUniversal had done with MSNBC, USA, CNBC, Oxygen, etceteraâa portfolio now known as Versantâa few weeks earlier.
âŚthe fate of Zazâs cable channels is⌠well, not great. As with Versant, it will likely only be a matter of time before Zazâs SpinCo gets sold to a much smaller mediaco looking to buttress its sub fees, or to a private equity firm eager to expedite the value extraction, possibly in tandem with an operating partner ⌠The asset that does warrant some consideration hereâat least for those who still harbor some hope for the future of journalismâis CNN.
âŚitâs likely that Zazâs cable assets will hit the public markets with some debt attached, and it wouldnât be surprising if they ended up in the hands of private equity ⌠As the networkâs budgets shrink, smaller indignities will pile up: shittier offices, fewer perks, more clamoring for resources large and small, and then the emergence of unforeseen competitors with sharper focuses and fewer legacy burdens. One day, Kaitlan Collins will wake up and realize that sheâs wasting her prime on cable and try to start her own Megyn KellyâTucker CarlsonâPat McAfee-style gig playing herself on a multiplatform mix of channelsâŚ
CNN âwill be orphaned, without any real investment or future,â one veteran media executive predicted. âI see no future for it.â
TL;DR: CNN is probably screwed.
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Some show makeovers⌠After the end of his CNN Newsroom shift, Max Foster now has his own CNNI show, What We Know, which airs at 3pm ET from London.
Kaitlan Collinsâ The Source gets a makeover in branding and studio, highlighting her DC connections.
The show now resides next to the newsroom - finally getting rid of the weird gray-on-blueish-white and textures after almost 2 years.
Whatâs with CNNâs obsession with condensed sans serifs and hightlighted text for programme titles, though? The bokeh/Morse code (?) dots at the edge of the screen are much more interesting than filling the wordmark with 4 big rectanglesâŚ
(From Archive.org)
That branded pillar behind Kaitlan reminds me of Tyne Tees in the 90s tooâŚ
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I like it. CNNâs identity came from newsroom sets. This is the perfect show to return to those routes.
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I like the setting I hate the logo.
It looks exactly the same as the Situation room logo but gold. So uninspiring.
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It would be good if they followed suit in New York. Itâs ridiculous that CNNI has four hours a day from there and itâs all from flash sets.
I imagine that might be the point, to tie them together. Agree with you though. It doesnât work. In fact I donât think logos and titles have ever been CNNâs strong point. They try, but can never get them quite right.
Yeah possibly. Just donât think it does much for Collins having her tied to another brand like that visually.
Donât even get me started on the News Central logo and brandingâŚ. Hello 2001 the space port called.
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Oh yeah, 100%, Kaitlan should be her own brand. But who knows what goes through the heads of CNN execs�
And youâre totally right about News Central. I love the idea but the execution is all wrong. The space port branding looks ridiculous and I find it a little nauseating to watch with the constantly moving cameras. I donât think they need 3 anchors either. The DC edition manages fine with 2, AND they get to sit down! Would be even better if they did it from Kaitlanâs new newsroom setâŚ
https://x.com/MarquardtA/status/1929553696595071040
Some personal news: Iâm leaving CNN after 8 terrific years. Tough to say goodbye but itâs been an honor to work among the very best in the business. Profound thank you to my comrades on the National Security team & the phenomenal teammates Iâve worked with in the US and abroad.
Another one bites the dustâŚ
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Peter Ford discussed with Ross and Russ on 3AW today on the historic live broadcast of Good Night, and Good Luck on CNN this Sunday morning.
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Video
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(PAYWALLED) https://puck.news/what-zaslavs-wbd-split-means-for-cnn/
So, what then for CNN? As you may have surmised, running a 24/7 global news network with foreign bureaus is expensive, and the underlying unit economics only make sense to the people inside the building. With the industry in inexorable decline, CNNâs ratings at a nadir, and younger audiences turning to user-generated schlock on YouTube and TikTok for news, those costs are increasingly hard to justify. The high-seven-figure salaries (or eight-figure, in a couple of cases) once seemed only slightly ridiculous. Now they seem appallingâespecially since thereâs no longer a market for this talent, or many of the producers that stand them up, at comparable rates.
âŚ
This will have perceptible ramifications on the talent side. Why, for instance, would Gunnar pay Anderson Cooper $18 million a year when Kaitlan Collins draws the same ratings at roughly a fifth of the salary? (Of course, by the time Gunnar gets around to it, Anderson will likely have determined that he no longer wants to read the dayâs news to less than a million people every night, either.) Does the network need more than a handful of marquee names hosting a few key hours, or can it pay younger, reasonably attractive talent mere hundreds of thousands to read the same transcripts off the teleprompter? Jake Tapper is locked into his own low-eight-figure multiyear deal, so will be the face of the network for a while longerâbut is surely the last CNN talent who will ever come close to netting that kind of income.
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This is well worth watching if youâre bored and have a spare half hour. Alisyn Camerota and Dave Briggs, both former CNN anchors, together with former CNN reporter Dylan Byers (now of Puck News) talking about the networkâs decline.
Couple of interesting points:
- Dave Briggs said he felt CNN spent way too much time reporting on the Russian collusion probe, and argued with bosses about this
- After the Parkland shooting, Briggs pitched a story about âeducated gun ownersâ and was shut down
- All feel CNN isnât going anywhere, but will continue to shrink and diminish, much like MTV
- Rumours are going round of plans for some sort of Substack news network
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Watching it now, and I felt that CNN lost the plot around what Dave Briggs said, but it certainly started to happen around Trumps first term as president.
So hereâs my two cents.
I think immediately they need to get rid of the international feed. Aside from the fact itâs bloody awful, the viewership would be tiny. Lump those resources while still cutting back into the main CNN feed.
Doing programming like Eva Longoria in Spain, itâs way out of place. You need content that is keeping people engaged outside of break news events, but this is definitely not it, thatâs lifestyle shit.
More things like United States of Scandal and Billionaire Boys club is what they need to pivot more too. Cover the White House, but move away from the day to day back to back, wall to wall coverage of Trump. Have about 50% of your scheduled programming focus on it (The Source, News Night etc)
But itâs time to focus abroad more in other programming.
Also I have no sympathy for presenters on $10million+ salaries. You cannot in any way tell me last the investment in these people at that level are worth it. They are presenting and reporting. They may be wonderful at what they do, but the salaries of these people are ridiculous in todayâs climate.
I would be putting salary caps on maximum of $500k a year. That way youâd be able to again, invest in your ground reporters as well as bureauâs.
As good as Anderson is, heâs definitely not worth that money.
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Great post! I agree with almost everything you wrote here.
I still think CNNI has value, and would be sad to see it go, but I do agree that the way itâs done currently is quite bad. To me it all feels a bit slapdash. Theyâll simulcast shows that donât make much sense internationally (CNN This Morning) but not take shows that do make sense (Situation Room) or interrupt shows halfway through the hour for World Sport. And Iâve never come across anyone who actually watches Inside Africa!
Having said that I do think you will get your wish after WBD is split. They will no doubt want to make cuts and CNNI is surely an easy target. Though knowing CNN theyâll still opt out for Inside Africa and other nonsense on the weekends!