With CNN’s ratings far behind rivals Fox and MSNBC, several network stars are not being offered raises or pay cuts with a take-it-or-leave-it message.
Former BBC News boss Mark Thompson has been brought in to revive the network in 2023 and his strategy appears to include cutting costs after the sacking of Chris Licht.
It’s part of what is rumored to be a winter of layoffs that many at the network fear will be a “bloodbath.”
For starters, star hosts Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer, who earned $7 million and $3 million, respectively, signed new deals for the same price, and one agent joked that “flat is the new thing.”
Fox News exile Chris Wallace, hired by the network’s failed streaming service and now moved to his own weekend show, has been offered a new deal with a “significant” $8.5 pay cut. million dollars a year he earned. The anklet reported.
With CNN’s ratings well behind rivals Fox and MSNBC, several network stars are not being offered take-it-or-leave-it pay raises or cuts under new CEO Mark Thompson.
Fox News exile Chris Wallace, hired by the network’s failed streaming service and now moved to his own weekend show, has been offered a new deal with a “significant” $8.5 pay cut. million dollars a year he earned.
‘They have been extremely tough in contract negotiations. There’s a lot of “take it or leave it,” one agent said.
Many are wondering what’s next for $18 million host Anderson Cooper, as well as Erin Burnett ($5 million) and Dana Bash, whose deals will be finalized over the next two years.
Where the network may reportedly try to really cut back is with the network’s correspondents, who make six figures and rarely appear on the air and, when they do, are not to Thompson’s liking.
“Mark has made it known that he doesn’t like the conventional style of TV packages we’re doing,” an anonymous journalist told The Ankler.
‘He wants people who are nervous. He doesn’t want people who look like the traditional presenter, and it turns out those (edgy) people are cheaper.’
Thompson could make big cuts at the network’s D.C. bureau, ditching political coverage for more entertainment and travel.
‘If you don’t receive an offer within several months, you are in a precarious situation. That anxiety has seeped down, out and all over the place,” a CNN staffer said.
It will all be an attempt to save a network that averaged only 853,000 viewers in September, 21% less than the previous month and well below Fox News (2.5 million) and MSNBC (1.4 million).
Star presenter Jake Tapper did not receive a rise to his $7 million a year salary in his new contract.
Wolf Blitzer also renewed with the network without an increase in his $3 million a year paycheck.
DailyMail.com has contacted CNN for comment.
Thompson was hired to lead the network’s strategy, operations and business units, and serve as editor-in-chief, ultimately responsible for all CNN content and overseeing its 4,000 employees worldwide.
With Thompson, WBD chief David Zaslav is turning to an executive with experience at the highest levels of the news business, unlike Licht, a former TV producer who worked on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
The veteran media executive began his career at the British Broadcasting Corporation, joining in 1979 as a production trainee, rising to editor of Nine O’Clock News and Panorama and later a television director.
He left the BBC in 2002 to become chief executive of Channel 4, but returned when he was appointed director general in May 2004, a position he held until 2012.
At the BBC, Thompson chaired a broad set of newsrooms for television, radio and digital media, and led the development of BBC iPlayer, the world’s first streaming service from a major broadcaster.
His appointment at CNN came after a tumultuous 18 months of palace intrigue at the news network, beginning with the ouster of longtime boss Jeff Zucker last year.
Zucker resigned from CNN in February 2022 after it emerged that he had had an undisclosed affair with his top lieutenant, Allison Gollust, CNN’s executive vice president and one of the network’s most senior leaders.
WBD, which completed the merger to become CNN’s new parent company in April 2022, named Licht as the network’s new boss, but his tenure was marked by controversy.
Unlike Zucker, who enjoyed loyal support in the CNN newsroom, Licht’s tenure was marked by staff discontent that sometimes bordered on open revolt.