'Beginning of the end for Licht': Report says days could be numbered for CNN's CEO

A decision by CNN's parent company could reportedly be a bad omen for the company's CEO, who staked his reputation on the recent Donald Trump town hall event.

Warner Bros. Discovery recently announced the hiring of CNN’s new chief operating officer, David Leavy, and a new report from The Atlantic has an in-depth analysis of the hiring and its implications. The article focuses on the rough beginning for its CEO, Chris Licht, who decided to bet it all on a Trump event in an attempt to rehabilitate the network's image.

"When he took the helm of CNN, in May 2022, Licht had promised a reset with Republican voters — and with their leader. He had swaggered into the job, telling his employees that the network had lost its way under former President Jeff Zucker; that their hostile approach to Trump had alienated a broader viewership that craved sober, fact-driven coverage," The Atlantic wrote Friday.

"These assertions thrust Licht into a two-front war: fighting to win back Republicans who had written off the network, while also fighting to win over his own journalists, many of whom believed their new boss was scapegoating them to appease his new boss, David Zaslav, who’d hired Licht with a decree to move CNN toward the ideological center."

But since the town hall, during which Trump spoke over the CNN moderator and continued to push false election claims, things may have changed at the news network.

"Licht had not wanted this. Sure, he was chasing ratings; in nearly 20 years as a showrunner, ratings had been his currency," according to the report.

"But Licht had come to Manchester with bigger ambitions than lifting CNN out of the viewership basement for a single evening in May. He believed that Trump owed his initial political ascent in part to the media’s habit of marginalizing conservative views and Republican voters. That needed to change ahead of 2024. Licht wasn’t scared to bring a bunch of MAGA enthusiasts onto his set—he had remarked to his deputies, in the days before the town hall, about the 'extra Trumpy' makeup of the crowd CNN was expecting—and he damn sure wasn’t scared of Trump. The way to deal with a bully like Trump, Licht told his journalists, was to confront him with facts."

The Atlantic reports that Zaslav's new actions further show Licht may be in trouble.

"Licht had told me that he and Zaslav figured the 'gut renovation' of CNN would require two years of work," the report states. "But there was reason to believe that timeline was accelerating: Not long after our final interview, Warner Bros. Discovery announced the installation of CNN’s new chief operating officer, David Leavy, a Zaslav confidant whose hiring fueled talk of an imminent power struggle—and potentially, the beginning of the end for Licht."