CNN staffers are "breathing a sigh of relief" in response to Chris Licht's hiring as their new boss

Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair's Joe Pompeo reports that Licht, who currently serves as Stephen Colbert's showrunner on The Late Show, had been one of the rumored names last year to take over CNN -- months before Jeff Zucker was ousted as president. "My sense of the reaction inside CNN, where journalists were left dumbfounded, anxious, and very angry over WarnerMedia’s handling of the Zucker situation, is that people are breathing a little easier," says Pompeo. As one source told him: "He’s the best of the names that have been floated." Another source added that CNN staff feared they would get an empty, which is not Licht: “Everyone is breathing a sigh of relief and views him as a skilled producer who will care deeply about the programming." Meanwhile, Pompeo reports that Licht had to have an abrupt meeting with his Late Show staff Saturday over Zoom after news leaked of his hiring.

ALSO:

• Chris Licht isn't expected to cut costs at CNN, but he's expected to focus on more hard news and less opinion programming: Discovery CEO David Zaslav has told Licht that he doesn’t have a mandate to cut costs, report The Wall Street Journal's Joe Flint and Benjamin Mullin. In fact, they report that Zaslav and Licht had conversations about the news industry since before Zucker's ouster from CNN. After Zucker's exit, Zaslav began "aggressively courting" Licht.
• The Late Show has no immediate succession plan for Chris Licht