CNN boss to derive digital reconciliations as a network war: ‘industry passing through a revolution’

CNN boss Mark Thompson said he plans to produce a multitude of long-awaited digital reconciliation services to make up for the falling views in the cable news-but he continued to be unclear in detail.

The digital strategy, which has been in doing since Thompson joined CNN as CEO 18 months ago, is expected to start materializing with a broadcasting product this year, and another in 2026, Thompson told the Financial Times on Tuesday.

“I don’t think this thing is easy,” Thompson said about transforming CNN’s business to include strong digital income. “Our industry is undergoing a revolution. The landscape is still going through the stresses and types of a large interruption of the audience and the media in general.”

Thompson said he hopes to build a digital reconciliation business that will generate more than $ 1 billion in annual income by 2030.

The network, which is the home of Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper and Erin Burnett, made $ 1.7 billion in operating income last year, estimated the S&P Global Market Intelligence.

CNN Warner Bros’s parent company. Discovery has given Thompson more than $ 70 million to execute his turn, Dalja said.

The irony is not lost to CNN employees watching while Warner Bros. Discovery killed the CNN+ reconciliation service when joining the discovery in 2022-only to re-enable a digital strategy under Thompson less than two years later.

Thompson, who previously was the New York Times CEO, where he helped see a digital transformation, has been unclear about his plans for CNN, which has fallen sharply in ratings in recent years and reduced 200 jobs earlier this year as a result.

CNN refused to comment further.

CNN viewers in the USA were reduced by about 8% in the first three months of the year, despite a continuous flow of news created by Trump’s return to the White House.

The left rival Msnbc fell a 27% uncle for the period while the fox supported by the right was thrown at a stunning 48%, Nielsen said.

The executor described the first product to start this year as a “non-news digital product, although it may be heavy in information”.

Whatever this, it will launch at the US before relying on clients around the world.

The service is expected to have more lifestyle characteristics and content, the report said, noting that some of Thompson’s previous efforts to present a paywall for some of the CNN news content were still in the “Days of Elezit” phase.

Insiders have speculated that Thompson will create a series of services for subscribers out of essential news in lifestyle and entertainment – similar to what he did at the time he developed a subscription business based on cooking and games, among other things.

Thompson has been clear about CNN and cable TV assets, which continues to be reduced as clients choose broadcasting, telling employees in 2023 that the network is “nowhere near the future”.

Making worse issues for Thompson is the opposing attitude Trump has taken against CNN for what he regarded as one -sided coverage. Ealier this year, Thompson told CNN employees to focus on Trump’s second term and be “open mind” for the next four years and report objectively, instead of returning to the historically hostile relations of the network with the president.

Thompson echoed that feeling, saying Financial Times that CNN’s task is to “report on the government of the day in any country that is” in a correct “,” right -minded “way that” does not work under its prejudice prejudices and will not leave power to take into account “.

The execution added: “We should not get into the idea that part of our work is to oppose political forces as such. Our job is to do the political race than to go to the ring and start throwing punches ourselves.”