Jeff Zucker, then president of CNN, at a benefit for the Natural Resources Defence Council in New York on April 30, 2019.
Zucker’s criticism may be painful for executives running CNN to hear secondhand and thirdhand. But also painful are the numbers: The news division, which once regularly made more than $1 billion in profit annually, generated just $750 million in profit last year, in part because of what Warner Bros. Discovery said was $200 million in losses from the CNN+ streaming service.
This article on Zucker is based on interviews with more than four dozen of his associates in the media industry who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing their relationship with him. He declined to comment, but through a spokesperson described his attitude toward CNN. The get-together didn’t kindle much bonhomie between the media executives, who had been friendly in the clubby world of TV news. Licht was seeking a rapprochement. Zucker was asked to give advice. But afterward, the former CNN president griped that Licht didn’t take any of his pointers, said a person familiar with his feelings following the meal.
He has also been candid about what he sees as the missteps of CNN’s former parent company, AT&T, and its leaders, including former WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar, many industry acquaintances who have spoken with Zucker in recent months say. Underlying the grievances are tensions between Zucker and Zaslav, who picked Licht to succeed Zucker at the top of CNN. Once great friends and business allies — and a regular pair at the East Hampton Golf Club in East Hampton, New York — the two men have grown apart since Zucker’s ouster, people familiar with their relationship say.
When Zucker was forced out of CNN last year, he and the network’s parent company negotiated over a statement designating his failure to disclose his relationship with Gollust as the reason for his exit. “I was required to disclose it when it began but I didn’t. I was wrong,” Zucker wrote in a memo to employees at the time.
In the summer, he traveled to Jackson Hole, in Wyoming, for an off-the-record gathering of media executives. In a fireside chat at the event, he was asked for his view on the current direction of CNN and in his answer criticized Kilar for the way the executive handled his exit, according to two people familiar with his remarks.