Chris Licht, a veteran television producer who helped create the “Morning Joe” show on MSNBC and later successfully overhauled CBS’s morning and evening programming, is set to be CNN’s next leader, according to three people with direct knowledge of the decision.
“Late Show with Stephen Colbert” executive producer, Licht, 50, is poised to succeed Jeff Zucker, whose nine years on the CNN presidency came to an abrupt end this month when he resigned over a relationship he had with a colleague without have informed the network.
Licht is expected to join CNN once the network’s parent company, WarnerMedia, completes a merger with Discovery Inc. that could close by April. Licht and David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery, are friends who have known each other for over a decade.
Discussions between Licht and Zaslav began shortly after Zucker’s departure and have accelerated over the past two weeks, according to one of the sources. A formal announcement is expected possibly as early as this week. The news of Licht’s choice was first reported by the Puck website.
Running CNN, a worldwide news company with thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, will be by far one of the biggest undertakings in Licht’s television career. He will join the network at a time of turmoil.
CNN’s newsroom was shaken by Zucker’s astounding departure. The network’s prime-time and morning ratings are mired in third place, behind rivals Fox News and MSNBC. And Discovery’s imminent acquisition raises more questions about the network’s future direction.
Licht is co-creator of “Morning Joe,” the massively successful franchise that still dominates MSNBC’s morning programming. He joined CBS News in 2011, where he is seen as responsible for turning the fortunes of “CBS This Morning” around, bringing presenters Charlie Rose and Gayle King to the show and introducing a more relaxed format. In 2016, CBS invited him to produce “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” which in its early months struggled to match the ratings and critical acclaim given to Colbert’s predecessor, David Letterman.
Licht was responsible for a surprising turnaround in the audience, encouraging Colbert to interact more strongly with political news and current affairs. Introduced live shows on program after major news events like election nights and State of the Union speeches. In 2017, Colbert achieved something David Letterman has rarely achieved in his long career: outperforming NBC’s “The Tonight Show.” That advantage continues to this day, five years later.
Late-night comedy shows are a very different challenge from a network on the scale of CNN.
The network has dozens of journalists in the field in Ukraine covering the Russian invasion. It is weeks away from launching a new digital subscription service, CNN+, which will be late to the streaming journalism wars in which the network has already invested tens of millions of dollars. Zucker’s departure was also followed by the forced resignation of his romantic partner, Allison Gollust, CNN’s director of communications and marketing.
Under Zucker’s aegis, CNN’s programming adopted a clearer political stance, driven in part by the fierce attacks it faced from then-President Donald Trump. Recently, John Malone, president of Liberty Media and who will be a key player at Warner Bros. Discovery, to be formed soon, has publicly lamented the fact that CNN has strayed from its traditionally unbiased coverage of the news.
Licht is likely to have the full support of Zaslav, Discovery’s CEO. The two often dine together several times a year, and Licht has been a regular at the celebrity-heavy party Zaslav often throws in East Hampton, New York, on Labor Day weekend. September fair in the USA).
A graduate of Syracuse University’s SI Newhouse School of Communications (where a student control room is named after him), Licht began his television career on a local news channel. He worked in Los Angeles at the time of the OJ Simpson trial and spent time in San Francisco before joining MSNBC, where he became a producer on Joe Scarborough’s talk show.
Licht has a family bond with his new employers: his wife, Jenny Blanco, worked for CNN for several years as a producer for anchor Anderson Cooper and later as director of talent recruitment and development. The two started dating when they were working at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
