http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/business/media/jeffrey-zucker-expected -to-be-next-president-of-cnn.html?_r=0
In the days to come, when Time Warner appoints a new leader of CNN Worldwide for the first time in a decade, that person will face an identity crisis unlike any other in corporate America. Though CNN over all is on track to have its most profitable year ever, its flagship channel in the United States is seemingly rudderless, run by layers of producers and executives - many with competing visions. Its low prime-time ratings are the stuff of punch lines and a journalism school case study in the damage wrought by the digital age. Then again, CNN also has tremendous potential, an enviably popular Web site and countless people rooting for it to succeed. Throughout a four-month search for the person to succeed Jim Walton, the departing president, attention has centered on Jeffrey Zucker, the former chief executive of NBCUniversal, who was replaced when Comcast took over the company last year. Mr. Zucker produces Katie Couric's syndicated daytime talk show. Several news executives close to Mr. Zucker said this week that they believed he had been chosen to run CNN, and they expected the appointment to be announced soon. People close to the Time Warner chief executive, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, also identified Mr. Zucker. A Time Warner spokesman declined to comment. In considering candidates to run one of the world's best-known, but beleaguered, news organizations, Mr. Bewkes and his deputy Phil Kent have also been considering their own legacies. They are cautious about not undermining CNN's journalistic heart and soul, even as they strive to resuscitate the channel's prime-time lineup, according to people who have met with them about the search. That means the channel's programming will remain nonpartisan in nature. "They want someone who has programming and management and cable expertise; someone who can be credible to the staff and to the business community," one person said. "They know that this is a pretty tall order." Mr. Zucker could check off all those boxes. As a young NBC News producer, he helped start what became a 16-year winning streak for the "Today" show. He had mixed results as he moved up the rungs of NBC, but he can point to cable programming successes even as the NBC broadcast network struggled. He did not respond to requests for comment, and people with knowledge of the search insisted on anonymity to preserve friendships and business relationships. But many others in and around CNN spoke on the record about the challenges ahead. Getting the top-heavy 4,000-person company - spread among New York, Washington, Atlanta and bureaus around the world - to row in the same direction will be one of the toughest tasks, many said. CNN's many channels and sites net roughly $600 million in annual profits, through advertising revenue and subscriber fees. But the channel is leaving ad dollars on the table, as one executive put it, because its prime-time ratings are lagging, and it is putting future fee increases at risk by appearing irrelevant in the eyes of some cable subscribers. One problem dates back to CNN's creation in 1980: when there is a lack of news, there is a lack of viewers. Kiran Chetry, a CNN morning anchor from 2007 to 2011, said her time there was like being on a news treadmill: "We were running, sweating, doing the work, but never getting anywhere ratings-wise," she said. This stemmed, she said, from uncertainty about "what we were, who our audience was and how we best served them." As Fox News and, later, MSNBC put on confrontational political programs with partisan points of view, CNN sold itself as proudly nonpartisan, but it fell from first to second to third place in the cable news wars along the way. This should have been an "up" year for the channel, thanks to the presidential election; but through mid-November the channel had drawn 412,000 viewers at any given time, down 16 percent from the previous 12 months. The dwindling ratings have given rise to a popular sport: prescribing solutions for CNN. With news headlines now always a click away, what should the original cable news channel become? Among the unsolicited proposals: that CNN's channel in the United States act more like its harder-news sister CNN International; that it add more reality shows; or that it apply a filter to the news like those from Jon Stewart or the "Newsroom" character Will McAvoy. "They don't want to be Fox and they don't want to be MSNBC. Fine. But 'neither nor' is not an identity," said the New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen. "It can't tell you what talent to hire, or what programs to try. They keep circling around the answer: declare jihad on the talking points and make that your identity, along with on-air fact-checking." Tom Johnson, the chief of CNN in the 1990s, said he would like to see "a leader who will position CNN as The New York Times of television news - not The New York Post or The National Enquirer. Do not attempt to outfox Fox." Mr. Johnson suggested an emphasis on investigative and enterprise journalism. David Bohrman, a longtime CNN executive who left last year for Current TV, said he thought the channel's only problem was "self-confidence." "I think they need to go back to some of the goals of the past," he said, namely, excellence in news coverage. But doing that might require accepting - and acknowledging aloud - that its anchors are not going to be as popular as the Sean Hannitys of the world. As Aaron Brown, the anchor of CNN's flagship prime-time newscast between 2001 and 2005, said, "In the end, maybe they really should be content with an ace brand, awards and big profits, and leave the ratings to others." Mr. Brown cautioned, though, that CNN was losing "too many" of the big news days that it used to own. "That would scare me," he said. "If they can't win those big days, they will never compete on the normal days. I would start there." _______________________________________________ Please be sure to include a URL to the article. Reply to the sender with a "Thank you" if you like this post. _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
