CNN and MSNBC are fretting over post-Trump future

“What happens,” asked one MSNBC on-air personality, “when you don’t need us?”

The disquiet extends to the highest echelons.

CNN’s president, Jeffrey A. Zucker, is weighing whether to exit the network amid some tension with his new boss, Jason Kilar, the WarnerMedia chief executive whose background is in tech, not journalism. Zucker is mulling his options over the holidays and is likely to make a final decision early in the new year, according to several people briefed on his thinking. Last week, MSNBC announced a replacement for its leader of more than a decade, Phil Griffin, the architect of its popular liberal lineup.

This portrait of news networks in flux is based on interviews with nearly a dozen current and former on- and off-air staff members at CNN and MSNBC, most of whom requested anonymity to speak frankly about issues bedevilling top executives. Most agreed there would be a ratings slide in 2021, saying the only question is how big it will be.

Trump’s refusal to leave the political stage quietly has kept viewers watching through the post-election daze. In recent weeks, CNN is regularly beating Fox News, the longtime No. 1 cable news network, in total viewers. CNN has also led in the advertiser-friendly bracket of adults under the age of 54 every day for more than a month, its longest such streak since the aftermath of September 11, 2001.

MSNBC’s Morning Joe has bested a Trump favourite, the Fox News morning show Fox & Friends, for four weeks straight, and MSNBC’s top-rated anchor, Maddow, has racked up her biggest wins in nearly two years. The unending pandemic has also kept the ratings up, a common pattern at cable news networks during events like wars, hurricanes and mass shootings.

But network executives, paid to strategize for months and even years ahead, are turning their focus to a post-Trump, post-vaccine America and the changed viewing habits they may find there.

At CNN, which has focused almost exclusively on politics the past four years, those questions are dovetailing with a shift in corporate leadership. The granddaddy of cable news is now controlled by AT&T, which picked Kilar, the founding chief executive of streaming platform Hulu, to lead its WarnerMedia entertainment and news division.

At the start of December, Kilar toured CNN’s offices in New York and Washington and held one-on-one sessions with prominent anchors, many of whom he was meeting for the first time, according to five people with knowledge of the visits. Kilar sought the meetings to introduce himself and talk up his enthusiasm for their work as well as his latest project, a CNN-branded streaming offering, the people said.

The meetings coincided with uncertainty at CNN about the fate of Zucker, a hands-on leader who commands the loyalty of its anchors and star correspondents. A former chief executive of NBCUniversal, Zucker is known to micro-manage the network’s journalism, calling control rooms and whispering in anchors’ earpieces during prominent interviews.

He is also the face of a news network besieged by a president who has tried to brand CNN, falsely, as the epitome of “fake news,” rallying his conservatives fans against it. Trump’s attacks have come at a time when CNN has received threats. In 2018, the network had to evacuate its New York office because of a mail bomb.

Zucker, whose contract extends through next year, is genuinely undecided about whether to stay, according to several people with knowledge of his thinking.

CNN is experiencing record-high ratings that few in the industry think will be matched again, giving Zucker an opportunity to go out on top after an eight-year tenure. On the other hand, he likes being in the middle of the action and feels obligated to steer the network through a period of political and corporate uncertainty.

His new boss, Kilar, is viewed warily within CNN as a tech evangelist with little experience in news gathering, especially the blood sport of covering politics in a divided nation. And Zucker was deeply displeased when Kilar, who took over WarnerMedia in May, stripped him of several responsibilities, including oversight of the network’s communications and human resource teams, two of the people said. Zucker received a heads-up only just before the changes were announced, one of the people said.

At MSNBC, a succession has already taken place.

The announcement that Rashida Jones, a 39-year-old news executive who will become the first Black woman to lead a general cable news network, would take over from Griffin came as NBCUniversal is pondering how a network known for anti-Trump opinion should reconstitute itself in a Biden era.

Cesar Conde, the former Telemundo leader who is now chair of NBC’s news division, has approached anchors and producers to discuss where MSNBC should go from here.

The network’s audience ballooned during the Trump presidency, providing hours of talk on impeachment, the president’s tax returns, Stormy Daniels, White House superspreader events and the election.

With Trump so central to MSNBC’s ratings surge, some producers see a slide coming. Others at the network say that Trumpism — with its attendant partisanship and politicisation of society — will persist, keeping viewers locked in even after Trump is no longer in the White House. For now, Conde is focused on finding ways to introduce MSNBC viewers to news programming on NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock, and network-branded podcasts.

Griffin, the outgoing network head, ran MSNBC’s opinion shows, elevating Maddow in 2008 to full-time anchor. His replacement, Jones, hails from the reporting side of NBC News, where among other responsibilities she oversaw political events like primary debates.

Until the answers materialise, MSNBC can stick to business as usual as Trump continues to cause agita for its liberal viewers. This month, The Rachel Maddow Show is leading its Fox News competitor, Hannity in the ratings for the first time since February 2019.

The New York Times