I see that CNN has canned their CEO after only about a year on the job:
CNN CEO Chris Licht will be leaving the media company just 16 months after being picked for the position.
Licht announced Wednesday that he will be leaving CNN after meeting with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav. The 51-year-old CEO will be replaced in the interim by a three-person leadership team which includes longtime CNN executive Amy Entelis, who worked closely with former cable news boss Jeff Zucker before Zucker’s resignation in February of 2022.
“For a number of reasons things didn’t work out and that’s unfortunate,” Zaslav said. “It’s really unfortunate. And ultimately that’s on me. And I take full responsibility for that.”
Zaslav told employees that CNN is “in the process of conducting a wide search” for a new leader that could “take a while.”
I want this job. Here’s how I see it working.
If CNN is serious about rebuilding its image and ratings, what better way to signal that change than by picking an avowed conservative (i.e. me) who will not become enthralled by blowjob pieces by the New York Times and Atlantic Magazine?
My first pledge would be to make CNN’s principle business about actual news instead of opinion — all their talking heads would be fired on Day One of my tenure — and my job would be to make their ad line “This… is CNN” something that doesn’t instantly cause mocking laughter and isn’t used as a punchline.
See this shit?
Politicians and media personalities from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Joe Scarborough were angered by CNN’s decision to host Trump on the platform that has consistently offered friendly coverage to Democrats.
Gone. I pledge to give unfriendly or at best skeptical coverage to everybody. If that frightens off the Lefties, c’est la vie. (For some reason, conservatives have no problem with this, as long as they are treated fairly — Tim Scott went on The View recently, even.)
Sure, I know nothing about running a media company. So what? “Industry experience” doesn’t seem to have helped them very much in the recent past, has it?
I’d move all their New York offices to somewhere like Fort Worth, cutting the cord of the New Jersey Turnpike, so to speak, and okay, I’d make the sacrifice myself and relocate to Atlanta.
Oh, and by the way: I’m cheap. Best way to increase profits is to cut costs, most especially salaries (see “terminated talking heads”, above) and the best way to signal that is for the CEO to be the first to take a pay cut. All media people are overpaid anyway. And to those who would say that I’d be hiring cheap (ergo inferior) replacements, I would point out that the overpaid assholes they’ve currently got on staff have not exactly covered themselves with glory.
I’d be satisfied with a two-year contract at $12 million p.a., no shares or stock options (conflict of interest), with further annual extensions at $12 million each (because I don’t want to work there for too long lest I get cooties).
They could use one of these as my profile pic:
It would frighten all the right people, and please all those on the right.
To quote Roger Ailes: “Half the market.”
What could CNN lose, any more than they’ve lost already?