There are no quick fixes in a major overhaul, but signs are that new CNN chief Chris Licht is having an impact despite serious headwinds. His critics should give him the time such a Herculean task needs to be realized.
THE PRICE POINT
CNN’s Turnaround Won’t Be Overnight, But Licht Is On The Right Path
Hank Price
It’s a funny thing about turnarounds. After one year on the job, the press seems shocked that Chris Licht has not returned CNN to its long-ago dominance. Never mind the fact it took Jeff Zucker nine years of hard work to transform CNN from a respected news organization into a shadow of MSNBC.
Having studied turnarounds for most of my career, I can say with some certainty that failure is usually the result of giving up too early. A great plan and successful execution are never enough. Fortitude is also essential.
Turnarounds are needed because a media organization suffered mismanagement for a very long time, opening the door to competitor success. When that happens, viewers often take it personally, sort of like a divorce, and no longer see the product as relevant to their lives. In this, CNN is a textbook case.
The original idea for CNN was a 24-hour news service whose star was the news. That was the CNN that gained viewer loyalty. When Fox News decided to target viewers to the right, followed by MSNBC’s decision to go left, the obvious move for CNN would have been to play the trust card, but instead, leadership panicked. That can’t all be blamed on Zucker. He was merely the last to take CNN down a dead-end path.
The result was a CNN that lost trust and credibility. That left viewers with few reasons to watch other than perhaps a favorite personality. In CNN’s case, personalities have been part of the problem, so that too must change.
BRAND CONNECTIONS
Enter Chris Licht, a guy who early on worked in the highly competitive world of local television. More importantly, Licht was the person who rebooted CBS This Morning, so he has experience starting in last place. CBS had not enjoyed morning success since Captain Kangaroo, so moving that needle was a good prerequisite for taking on CNN.
From the announcement of new leadership, Licht and his boss David Zaslav saw the obvious answer to CNN’s problems. To regain viewer trust, the network must again become a beacon of fairness and credibility. That is a position no national news organization currently enjoys. I can’t think of a harder assignment, nor can I imagine a more valuable position once achieved.
As we have seen, the CNN staff did not welcome the idea of fairness with open arms. In many of their minds, fairness was an out-of-date idea. They believed only elite attitudes mattered. Impressing East Coast liberals was more important to many of them than getting people to watch. Thus began the backbiting and press leaks.
None of this is unusual in a turnaround. The old guard always lobbies for the person with new ideas to be fired, usually by spreading rumors to a sycophant press. Nor is it unusual for ratings to drop before beginning the long climb up, because internal dissent always shows up on the air. That’s where CNN is today.
So, just how challenging is Chris Licht’s assignment?
The most powerful force in any organization is culture. Culture brings purpose and common meaning, along with unwritten rules that everyone understands. It takes a long time to develop culture, and even longer to change it, but there is no way to fix a failed organization without first fixing the failed culture.
Culture cannot be changed through speeches, complex plans or marketing. Change begins with a strong leader clearly defining a new cultural goal. This always creates fear, and defenses go up. Some employees will never accept change and eventually must be weeded out. Others will only change when they see results.
How does the leader get results? First, by making sure every product decision supports the new cultural goal. Second, by building one-on-one relationships with key influencers throughout the organization that will reinforce the desired changes. Consistency and relationship building are important foundational blocks.
The next step is the most difficult. There must be a visible change in content and attitude across the network. A long-time viewer told me just last week he is beginning to see some signs of a more balanced product, so mark that down as a start.
Once product goals are being accomplished, overt promotion can begin. Promotion of an inconsistent or unpolished product is counterproductive, because in today’s environment of no second chances, promotion must follow, not lead the product.
After that comes execution, execution and execution over a long period of time. The return of viewers starts with a small group noticing the change, then telling their friends. When that happens, the power of social media creates a wave of interest and viewership.
Why does all this take so long? Because any worthy goal must be hard to achieve. By the time you reach dominance, it is too late for others to copy because you own the position. Others will, of course, try to replicate your model, but they will fail just as previous CNN management failed.
Sadly, many companies are not willing to invest in the multiyear process turnarounds require. They pull the plug far too early, then look for success in magic bullets — the big-name anchor, in-depth investigations, better marketing and other quick fixes that rarely work.
Fortunately for CNN, Licht and Zaslav understand that success will take time. Their resilience over the long haul will be critical because the only alternative is disaster and embedded failure.
If Zaslav continues to provide the time and support required for success, and Licht continues to push forward while ignoring noise from the press, then CNN has a chance of becoming the one national news organization viewers can again trust. That’s a goal worth investing in. Achieving it will be good for the nation and equally good for Warner Bros. Discovery stockholders.
Hank Price spent 30 years leading television stations for Hearst, CBS and Gannett while concurrently building a career in executive education. He is the author of Leading Local Television and two other books.
Comments (5)
AIMTV says:
March 27, 2023 at 9:50 am
Great article, Hank. I worked at Univision after they’d gone public in the late 90s. At the time, they were the leader of Spanish language TV at 90% viewer share and probably 80% ad share. But the problem was the ad pie for the Spanish language TV segment was tiny, and we were tasked with growing the entire pie with $ from the massive “general market .”
This also involved change, significant change, and patience… a lot of patience. I did not sell my first “General Market” advertiser for over a year. But by year three, I was the top new business executive in the biggest market in the country. I had never encountered such patience in a sales organization, but to their credit, they knew how tough the fight would be and planned for it. I have had a lot of criticisms of management during that era in my career, but fortitude is not one of them. Several years later, Univision squandered its dominance, much as CNN did beginning with Zucker. But, I, too, have sensed some renewed “watchability” in CNN now that I have not seen in several years. I initially noticed it at the airport, then subscribed to their travel newsletter. Baby steps.
Character is revealed during tough times, not good. As this country’s cable news and political discourse cratered, CNN responded terribly. They took the bait. Broadcasting is going through tough times now. How will it respond? With desperate moves embracing “blood money” sports (MMA, LIV Golf, etc.) and anything for a buck mentality? Or fundamental, systemic, and creative change with a long-term impact that one can be proud of? Change is the toughest for humans to accomplish on their own. It’s usually spurred on by outside forces. Sometimes it means reaching a point where the pain of staying the same is greater than making a change. I do not envy Chris Licht’s task, but I wish him the best for his and, I may even add, our country’s sake.
tvn-member-3011604 says:
March 27, 2023 at 11:33 am
The fact that Chris Licht has kept Don Lemon, a media personality his staff and audiences find repulsive and a ratings albatross, indicates that he isn’t serious about turning CNN around. In addition firing Lemon, Licht needs to cut loose their current roster of pundits, most of whom are clowns and hacks. Find some credible experts and then refresh the newsroom with some real journalists. That would be a good start to revitalizing CNN.
favnewser says:
March 27, 2023 at 2:21 pm
I think editorial wise when you watch the network it’s fixed and the 3 shows that are the most watched (blitzer/Erin/Cooper) are shows from pre Zucker era which tell you something: people want just the news.
Camerota’s show at night is really great but they need to give it it’s own identity with new name set graphics/colors and theme music that match the show. Using Lemon’s brand is a negative carryover.
The thing is that if fox and msnbc are basically talking head political channels then CNN has to be news but with showmanship. Under zucker era there was never any set updates or cosmetic updates as there wasn’t a need too. But now Chris has to encourage each show to show old school showmanship. Show the sets, the staff working kind of like what MSNBC used to have in NJ.
Lastly there is some talent that needs to go. Lemon, and Keilar is damaged and should be gone. The morning show should be Jim Schuto and sara sidner on with poppy. There’s a lot of new and better people to have on air for dayside. Bianna goldriga, Erica hill, should be on news central, as well as some 3rd and 4th bench talent need to be promoted. Rob Nelson from scripts would be great and they should hire back kyra phillips from abc. Phil from cnn, abby, and audie is great and should be on more. Caitlin Collins is good but not for morning tv and would be better during hard news. The longer he waits to make these changes the higher the risk these people leave for other networks. Lemon, Keilar, Tapper all are shot brands. You can’t rehab them and thus you can’t fix a network using them.
Doug Terry says:
March 27, 2023 at 9:54 pm
What the lead column alludes to be doesn’t deal with at much length is the fact when changes come, the audience runs away. Those who have been accustomed as to what they should expect suddenly find the programs they had tuned in to watch are gone and they don’t know what to think, generally, of the new stuff.
The classic example in my mind occurred when CBS tried to turn the CBS Evening News into “The Katie Couric Show”. They decided she was the strong, liked and experienced broadcaster who could move mountains for them. The only notable movement was people leaving their evening news habits. CBS wanted to play to her strengths so they featured long interviews and more feature type stuff and almost no one was impressed. If they had stuck with their existing pattern of hard news stories and gradually slipped in more Katie, it might have worked. It should also be noted that Couric had not only one of the highest favorable ratings in audience measurements, she also had one of the lowest, meaning lots of people disliked her before she ever moved to CBS.
I also suspect that the existing staff at CBS didn’t want her and probably worked to undermine her contributions. If you can’t have a staff supporting you most of the time, you can’t succeed.
The idea that Licht can manage a complete turnaround at CNN seems highly unlikely to me. It is not just a matter of patience but the entire upper management has to have faith that the process, if not instantly indicative of success, is working in the right direction.
The other comments indicating that it is merely a matter of shuffling preferred personalities around strikes me as funny. When the NY Times had open comments from the public about CNN, people went with the same idea, trying to manage the line-up from home as armchair experts. I don’t know why anyone would watch a channel that is mainly a succession of panels chewing over news developments.
The single biggest and easiest change, from my viewpoint, would be to label the opinion panels and OPINION and to make clear they speak for themselves, not the channel. The average viewer assumes that when a panelist says something, CNN
Joe Bottoms!! says:
March 28, 2023 at 9:50 am
You removed the most profound reply you had..Shows how spineless you are and how in the pockets this company and its contributors are with depraved companies like ESPN/CNN and the networks. How much are they paying you??