If you were Chris Wallace today you’d be pissed.
The long time voice of reason at Fox News finally left the questionable channel this year and took a position with CNN’s new streaming service, CNN Plus.
But that was before Jeff Zucker imploded and left, and CNN lost most of its viewing audience. And before Discovery CHannel’s David Zaslav bought CNN as part of Warner Media and cleaned house.
Now today Axios is reporting that Zaslav has fired CNN Plus’s COO, Brad Ferrer, and suspended all spending on marketing for the streamer. CNN Plus is said to have found no more than 150,000 subscribers. No one knows where it is, what it is, how to find it, or what’s going on there. On top of that, CNN is awaiting the May 2 arrival of Zucker’s replacement, Chris Licht.
So Wallace has good reason to be upset. He should be on the main CNN, after all, where he could have an impact. But there may be some resistance to that because of his Fox background. And CNN Plus? The new COO is Neil Chugani, Discovery’s current CFO for streaming and international.
Axios is also saying that Chris Cuomo’s 9pm show may be replaced by a live newscast. Really? CNN would be so smart to get back to a Larry King like show at 9pm with hot topics and celebrities, go against Hannity with counter programming.
