Speaking at the Warner Bros Discovery upfront, new CNN boss Chris Licht delivered his most expansive public comments since taking over from Jeff Zucker, promising a morning show “disruptor” and a challenge to cable news norms.
Licht also said Chris Wallace’s talk show, Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?, has gone back into production and will now stream on HBO Max and air Sunday nights on linear CNN. Wallace decamped from Fox News last year and resurfaced with the series on CNN+ but the abrupt unplugging of that new streaming outlet left the show in limbo.
Refocusing CNN on its straight-news roots is a strategy Licht and Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav have signaled in internal meetings. He reaffirmed that plan in his upfronts comments.
“Extremes are dominating cable news, we will seek to go a different way,” Licht said. “We intend to challenge the traditional philosophy of cable news.”
The war in Ukraine, he added, is a story that “only we have the resources and commitment to tell”
Licht said he will “reimagine” CNN’s morning show and will be “seeking to be a disruptor of the broadcast morning shows.”
