PANIC AT CNN MASSIVE LAYOFFS COMING! Employees Freak Out As They Wait To Find Out If They Are Gone!

CNN Worldwide Chairman and CEO Chris Licht attempted to assert his authority at an all-hands meeting with staff Tuesday morning about the coming layoffs and his plans for the news organization.

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PANIC AT CNN MASSIVE LAYOFFS COMING! Employees Freak Out As They Wait To Find Out If They Are Gone!

CNN Worldwide Chairman and CEO Chris Licht attempted to assert his authority at an all-hands meeting with staff Tuesday morning about the coming layoffs and his plans for the news organization.
Speaking during a Q&A session with anchor Alisyn Camerota at CNN's studios in New York, Licht was asked repeatedly about Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav's ideas for the network, to which he responded: "I own the vision for this place," according to network insiders.
"I did not take this job to take dictation from anybody," he added, pushing back on the idea that he is taking direction from WBD. Licht said he and Zaslav are on the same page, describing the CEO as a fan of CNN.
Anxious and depleted staff are waiting to hear if they will be axed from the team that is slimming down as WBD feels the pain of a weakening ad market and a stock price that has been halved since Discovery's acquisition of AT&T's WarnerMedia took place in April.
Licht confirmed that the timeline for layoffs would be early December, adding that some parts of CNN are still hiring and that the impact on newsgathering would be minimized. He also said that staff who are laid off will get 60 to 90 days notice and eligible executives would receive their January bonus and severance.
Licht took some fire at the all-hands over his previous assertions in June that there would be no major layoffs. He explained that he had told the truth as he knew it at the time and that things change. He also said he regretted that staff had been through gut-wrenching changes before his arrival and that he would now be delivering more, according to a senior company insider.
He told staff there will be a wider reorganization of newgathering staff. CNN management has been working to combine separate TV and digital desks into single units that work more closely together. Licht also said there would be no layoffs at CNN Digital, although some newsgathering staff are part of CNN Digital.
CNN will be investing in primetime, mornings, and digital, said the company insider, who suggested there are discussions around bringing US viewers more of CNN International's coverage and vice versa.
Stability on the digital team will come as a relief, according to a separate person familiar with thinking at the company, noting that some employees have expressed concerns about Licht's lack of digital chops and his lack of communication about the plan for digital as part of the business. CNN Digital staff had been working towards a goal to hit $1 billion in revenue under prior management, this person said, but streamer CNN+ — which was shuttered abruptly in April, just weeks after it launched — had been part of that goal.
The company employs some 4,600 employees globally, with around 1,200 are based in the US. CNN had some 200 to 300 open positions when Licht took up his role in May, and he began his reductions by first eliminating that open head count.
Earlier Tuesday, Zaslav told investors at a conference that if conditions in the ad market didn't improve the company would struggle to reach its $12 billion earnings target in 2023. The $12 billion figure is already on the low end of the $12-$14 billion earnings target shared earlier in the year.
Zaslav also noted that the HBO Max streaming service had lost $3 billion last year and that the merger has been "messier" than expected.
WBD is among several large media and tech companies, including Amazon, Disney, and Meta, that have announced layoffs in recent weeks.