File: The CNN headquarters on September 05, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images / AFP)
CNN, already beset by historically low television ratings, is laying off 6 percent of its staff, roughly 200 people, chief executive Mark Thompson announced in a memo to employees on Thursday morning.
The cuts, which will affect CNN employees around the world, will be completed by the end of the week.
The layoffs were framed as part of CNN’s evolution into a more digitally focused company. The company also announced plans to create a digital product that will allow customers to stream the channel through multiple online platforms, which follows the launch in October of a digital subscription that costs $3.99 a month.
CNN will also be unveiling a lifestyle-oriented digital product this year, though few details were provided.
"Our objective is a simple one: to shift CNN’s gravity towards the platforms and products where the audience themselves are shifting and, by doing that, to secure CNN’s future as one of the world’s greatest news organizations,” Thompson wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The Washington Post.
"America and the world need high quality, fair-minded, trustworthy sources of news more than ever. This difficult and sometimes painful process of change is the only way to make sure we can still provide it.”
Thompson has said that CNN aims to generate $1 billion in digital revenue by 2030. The company made $1.8 billion in total revenue in 2023, according to financial data released as part of a recent defamation lawsuit, with the majority of that coming through agreements with cable television companies that pay to carry the channel.
But those agreements will likely pay CNN less over time as an increasing number of customers are opting to "cut the cord” and drop their cable television packages in favor of cheaper streaming options or free-to-use social media platforms, meaning that television networks must create new digital revenue streams to compensate for those subscriber losses.
CNN parent company Warner Bros. Discovery has committed about $70 million to finance CNN’s digital transformation.
"The layoffs could definitely hurt CNN’s ability to cover news, both in the short term and long term,” said Ben Bogardus, a professor of journalism at Quinnipiac University. "Obviously having fewer reporters and producers covering the fast-moving Trump administration is never a good thing.”
The network’s last significant round of cuts was in December 2022, when the company laid off hundreds of employees as part of a cost-cutting strategy overseen by then-chief executive Chris Licht.
Some CNN employees have expressed concerns about the network’s ability to cover the Trump administration. Former CNN journalist Oliver Darcy reported Tuesday that Thompson had conveyed to some top network staffers on Sunday that he wanted the network’s coverage of President Donald Trump’s inauguration to focus less on past criticisms of the president and to be less opinionated in tone.
"There are a number of people behind the scenes who are very upset about the coverage, who think it’s gotten way too weak and think of kowtowing to Trump,” said one CNN political journalist who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the matter.
CNN’s coverage of the inauguration was relatively free from criticism of Trump, but on Tuesday, anchor Jake Tapper ripped into Trump’s decision to pardon roughly 1,500 people charged with crimes in the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot.
"If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned,” Tapper told his audience. "Obviously. Not obvious to everyone, I guess.”
