Two senior CNN executives are reportedly bolting the ratings-challenged community as unease grows over the anticipated cost-cutting from the looming company spinoff.
Laura Bernardini, vp of home information, and Jacque Smith, vp for digital video, are each leaving CNN, in keeping with Oliver Darcy’s Standing publication.
Bernardini has spent 28 years at CNN, whereas Smith has been on the community for 17 years.
Each CNN and Warner Bros. Discovery declined remark.
Their reported departures come amid rising anxiousness within the newsroom, with many staffers bracing for yet one more wave of upheaval as CNN is carved out of mum or dad firm Warner Bros. Discovery and bundled with different legacy cable networks.
WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels — who has a popularity as a ruthless cost-cutter — will take over the brand new firm, known as World Networks.
CNN’s star anchor Anderson Cooper, whose $18 million-a-year wage was reported for the primary time final week, has employed a brand new tremendous agent — resulting in hypothesis he is also on the best way out.
Wiedenfels, in the meantime, struck an optimistic tone concerning the community’s future in a current memo to staffers, calling himself a “deep admirer of CNN” who consumes its content material “around the clock,” in keeping with Standing.
The e-mail’s topic line — “Excitement for the Future” — did little to calm nerves, Darcy reported in his publication.
“Everyone is wary and tired and there is so much change that we don’t understand what direction the company is going in,” one CNN staffer instructed Darcy.
One other added: “There are people who think CNN won’t exist at some point.”
CNN boss Mark Thompson, who’s tried to maintain morale up, instructed staffers in a memo final week: “We hold our destiny in our own hands… If we reinvent CNN to meet the challenge of the future… we’ll succeed in all scenarios. If we don’t, we’ll suffer the same fate as any legacy company that fails to respond to a changing world.”
World Networks — which may even embrace TBSm HGTV and TNT — will mark CNN’s third mum or dad firm in seven years.
Beneath Warner Media, former boss Jeff Zucker and Jason Kilar launched CNN+, just for the streaming service to be killed weeks after launch by WBD CEO David Zaslav folliwing its $43 billion merger in 2022.
The community has lagged within the scores race towards rivals MSNBC and Fox Information as Zaslav has pushed for left-leaning CNN to attraction to a extra centrist viewers.
WBD is pouring $100 million into a brand new CNN streaming product set to launch this fall — and reportedly re-hiring a number of the identical CNN+ executives they beforehand let go.
“Global Networks has a robust portfolio and is set-up for success. Across many regions and teams internally, there is excitement for the opportunities of Global Networks,” a supply aware of the scenario instructed The Submit.
WBD will retain HBO, Warner Bros. Footage and Max as a part of a brand new entity referred to as Streaming & Studios.
