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Following a series of changes led by its new CEO and prompted by a debacle in viewership and earnings, CNN has decided to cancel the Sunday show hosted by Brian Stelter, ironically titled Reliable Sources.
According to an NPR report, CNN CEO Chris Licht informed Stelter on Wednesday of the decision to relieve him from the network and cancel his show. In a statement, the host expressed his gratitude for his years with the left-leaning TV station.
“It was a rare privilege to lead a weekly show focused on the press at a time when it has never been more consequential”, Stelter told NPR and promised to give more details in the final episode of his show, which will air this Sunday.
BREAKING: CNN is canceling its Sunday media affairs show Reliable Sources, and host Brian Stelter is departing the network, Stelter tells NPR. https://t.co/4PV8189hxV
— NPR (@NPR) August 18, 2022
Reliable Sources was until this week the network’s longest-running program, and Stelter hosted it for the last nine years. Its radicalization and ideological bias brought harsh criticism from the audience and strongly affected its ratings.
Following the merger of CNN’s parent company into the new Warner Bros. Discovery, management passed to Licht in May of this year, in the wake of a deepening financial disaster due to the failed launch of the streaming platform, CNN+.
Since then, Licht has been forced to tidy up the left-leaning network’s damaged position. Criticism of his performance came from all sides, including from one of the new parent company’s executives, John Malone, who said he hoped CNN would return to “true journalism” after the change in ownership.
David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, recently said he wanted the network, which for years was the star of television news media, to return to being unbiased. “America needs a news network where everybody can come and be heard; Republicans, Democrats”, he said at the time.
In addition to criticism for its ideological bias, the scandals involving its former host, Chris Cuomo, and its former director, Jeff Zucker, put CNN in a critical position, and led it to lose 80% of its viewers.
Despite announcing changes in its strategies and in the direction of its news shows, Licht’s attempts did not yield the expected results and, according to reports, the network’s earnings for 2022 fell below $1 billion for the first time in years.
Although Licht’s intentions did not include new layoffs or further budget cuts, the drop in viewership, profits, public trust and its hosts’ credibility, ended up putting an end to Stelter’s program.
Tomás Lugo, journalist and writer. Born in Venezuela and graduated in Social Communication. Has written for international media outlets. Currently living in Colombia // Tomás Lugo, periodista y articulista. Nacido en Venezuela y graduado en Comunicación Social. Ha escrito para medios internacionales. Actualmente reside en Colombia.