Can Mark Thompson save CNN?
I began this same feature last year by asking, “Can Chris Licht Turn CNN Around?” It turned out the answer to that question was ‘no.’ But the oddsmakers may feel more confident about Mark Thompson, still fewer than three months into his tenure leading the beleaguered cable news network. Behind the scenes, Thompson has, by all accounts, been saying the right things to instill confidence in CNN’s long-suffering worker bees that he was the right choice for the job, anointed by Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav practically in a heartbeat after Licht’s notorious implosion. The seasoned BBC pedigree, the triumphant New York Times turnaround, the crucial blend of television and digital smarts—these are the résumé highlights that seem to be nudging most observers to place their chips on Thompson.
Mark ThompsonBy Bloomberg/Getty Images.
Cable, of course, is an industry struggling with inexorable decline, and CNN continues to struggle with ratings that typically keep the channel in a distant third behind MSNBC and Fox News. There’s also the question of whether the digital transformation Thompson oversaw as CEO of the Times is something he can replicate for an entirely different business model. Puck’s Dylan Byers reported recently that Thompson is at work on a 2024 business plan that will reorient CNN around a “multiplatform philosophy.” Which is to say, we should have a better sense of where things are headed in the coming months. As one CNN journalist put it to me on the day of Thompson’s coronation, “You have to think, if he can’t make this work, then no one can.”
Can Will Lewis win over The Washington Post?
Will Lewis, the former Telegraph and News Corp. honcho whom Jeff Bezos recently appointed to steady the Post, is another executive whose London lilt has served him well in meet and greets. “I think we’re all really excited by your enthusiasm,” one Post journalist told the incoming publisher last month during an introductory town hall. “I think we’re like most Americans who are charmed by the accent.” (Can’t hurt that the guy was knighted a few months ago.)
William Lewisby Elliott O’Donovan for The Washington Post/Getty Images.
But make no mistake: Lewis is inheriting a restive staff, currently in the painful process of shedding about 240 jobs. He’s likewise inheriting business challenges that include stagnant revenues, soft subscription growth, and a miserable advertising market. (Then there’s the question of whether Lewis will seek to replace executive editor Sally Buzbee, although she presumably has a rapport with Lewis via his board seat at the Associated Press, where Buzbee served as executive editor before arriving at the Post, so there’s that.) For Lewis’s part, he’s projecting nothing but mojo. “We’re going to expand. We’re going to get our swagger back,” he said in a recent interview. “I know that right now is not our greatest time, but we’re going to grow again. And we’re going to get that confidence back and that swagger back. I can tell you that with absolute confidence.”
Will Fox and Smartmatic settle?
Joe Pompeo
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