CNN president Jeff Zucker, whose network finally triumphed over Fox News in ratings last month, notified staff on Thursday that he plans to leave the cable outlet when his contract is up at the end of 2021. The 55-year-old joined the network in 2013 and currently oversees operations at both the cable-news flagship and Turner Sports. Rumors had circulated that he was considering a departure soon after Donald Trump’s term ended and that he might use Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day to close out his time at the network. As my colleague Joe Pompeo noted yesterday, speculation has been rife about the timing of Zucker’s departure since the fall, with major newsrooms seeing leadership shake-ups across the board. “It will be very soon,” someone close to Zucker said of his verdict, while another source added, “The dominant feeling is that he might stay now, maybe at least through the end of his contract.”
On Thursday, Zucker reportedly told staff on a call that he had considered leaving sooner but had experienced a “change of heart.” He added, “Some of you will hear what I’m saying as an announcement that I am leaving. That is truly not the way I see it.” Last year Zucker and WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar were rumored to have had a series of disagreements—gossip that contributed to questions about the former’s plans to leave the network. Kilar tried quashing these rumors by saying on Kara Swisher’s New York Times podcast that “the two best things that ever happened to CNN were Ted Turner and Jeff Zucker.” Still, Zucker openly discussed that strain on the Thursday morning conference call. “The truth is, back in November and December, I had basically decided that it was time to move on,” he said, before assuring staff that he was now confident in his decision to stay. Speculation is already rampant about Zucker’s successor, with Business Insider on Thursday looking at 14 media executives, including David Rhodes, Subrata De, Jim Bell, as contenders for the top CNN slot or running “other TV networks as massive turnover looms.”
If Zucker had departed following Biden’s inauguration, he would have gone out on top. While Trump’s political rise did boost the network’s ratings and profit margins—leading some critics to question CNN’s culpability in his 2016 victory due to the constant spotlight the network afforded him—it was never enough to beat out Fox News. It was only in the final month of Trump’s White House tenure that CNN was able to jump the Fox hurdle, winning the overall and prime-time ratings races.
Ironically, Zucker himself was a key contributor in building the brand that Trump used to take the White House. During his time at NBC, Zucker was responsible for signing Trump to the network and greenlighting his hit reality-TV show, The Apprentice, which premiered in 2004; the show saw Trump as its host for 14 seasons and turned him into a household name. Shortly before Trump’s election, Zucker acknowledged that CNN “put on too many of [Trump’s] campaign rallies in the early months” and that the rallies attracted “quite a bit of an audience,” but added that he didn’t have “any regrets” about the coverage, later asserting that cable news “all benefited” from the Trump show.
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