Chris Licht Poised to Take Command of CNN in Discovery-WarnerMedia Merger

Chris Licht, the wunderkind producer who launched “Morning Joe,” retooled “CBS This Morning” and helped late-night host Stephen Colbert gain traction on CBS, is jumping to CNN to take over the operation once its corporate parent, WarnerMedia, is acquired by Discovery in a much-anticipated merger expected to take place in April, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Licht could not be reached for immediate comment and a CNN spokesperson referred an inquiry to Discovery. A Discovery executive declined to comment. Executives at CBS, where Licht currently oversees “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and is an executive vice president involved with programming strategies, were not able to offer immediate comment. Puck previously reported the new deal, which is said to have been cemented by Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who lured Licht away from a growing development deal that Colbert and his senior team have put together with Paramount Global, CBS’ parent company.

A formal announcement could come as soon as next week, according to one of the people familiar with the situation.

In hiring Licht, Zaslav has lured an executive with similar qualities to Jeff Zucker, the former CNN chief whose facility with talent and news production lent CNN new relevance in recent years. Zucker was ousted earlier this month after failing to disclose a personal relationship with Allison Gollust, CNN’s former chief marketing officer. Licht will not take over WarnerMedia’s sports operations, which had also previously reported to Zucker, according to the two people.

CNN’s new chief will face heady challenges as well. News staffers, who have developed strong ties to Zucker over the past decade as CNN became a regular target of the Trump administration, have been demoralized by his ouster, as well as the firing of former primetime anchor Chris Cuomo. CNN is poised to launch a new streaming-video service, CNN Plus, but there are questions about whether Discovery, which has strong roots in unscripted and documentary-style programming, sees the need for such a stand-alone service. “We will in the next in the near-term, sit down and get a have a real business plan. discussion with the people that CNN and CNN Plus,” Zaslav said in a call with investors last week,. “We haven’t had that yet.”

More to come….