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 industry’s trajectory, and WBD’s 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, etcetera—a portfolio now known as Versant—a few weeks earlier.
…the fate of Zaz’s cable channels is… well, not great. As with Versant, it will likely only be a matter of time before Zaz’s 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 here—at least for those who still harbor some hope for the future of journalism—is CNN.
…it’s likely that Zaz’s cable assets will hit the public markets with some debt attached, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they ended up in the hands of private equity … As the network’s 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 she’s wasting her prime on cable and try to start her own Megyn Kelly–Tucker Carlson–Pat McAfee-style gig playing herself on a multiplatform mix of channels…
CNN “will be orphaned, without any real investment or future,” one veteran media executive predicted. “I see no future for it.”
TL;DR: CNN is probably screwed.
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