CNN Names Mark Thompson Its Next Chief Executive

CNN announced Wednesday that Mark Thompson, the former chief executive of The New York Times Company and director general of the BBC, would be its next chairman and chief executive.

Mr. Thompson will start on Oct. 9, Warner Bros. Discovery, the network’s parent company, said in a news release.

“Mark has a formidable record, and I have long admired his leadership and ability to inspire organizations to raise their own ambitions and sense of what’s possible — and achieve it,” David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, wrote to colleagues Wednesday morning. “I am confident he is exactly the leader we need to take the helm of CNN at this pivotal time.”

CNN, one of the world’s leading news organizations, has been buffeted by a nearly endless string of crises for the last 18 months. Ratings have plunged, profits have fallen, and the network is still reeling from Chris Licht’s tenure as chief executive, which was terminated in June amid sagging staff morale.

Mr. Thompson, 66, joins the network with far more experience running a sprawling news organization than Mr. Licht, a former morning and late-night show producer.

Mr. Thompson started as a trainee at the BBC in 1979 and ascended to director general, the broadcaster’s top position, in 2004. He ran both the editorial and business operations in that role.

He joined the Times Company as its chief executive in 2012, the top business-side job at the organization. He was among a group of executives who revitalized the company financially by greatly expanding its digital subscription business, which was still in its infancy when he started.

“I just thought we weren’t doing it well enough,” he said in an interview with a British publication two years ago. “And we weren’t doing it smart enough. And we weren’t using data properly.”

The Times now has nearly 10 million subscribers, more than nine million of them digital-only. Mr. Thompson left the company in 2020, and was replaced by Meredith Kopit Levien, who has expanded the subscription strategy.

Dean Baquet, a former executive editor of The New York Times, said that Mr. Thompson was “the perfect hire” for CNN.

“He understands change, which is the most important quality for whoever they chose as a leader — someone who understands what things are going to have change,” Mr. Baquet said. “Newspapers were a little bit of a learning curve for Mark just because he had never been at a newspaper. But this is his world. He’ll be very comfortable in that world.”

In a note to CNN staff on Wednesday, Mr. Thompson acknowledged that broadcast journalism was going through “peak disruption.”

“We face pressure from every direction — structural, political, cultural, you name it,” he wrote. “Like many other media organizations, CNN has recently felt some of the uncertainty and heartache that comes with all of that. There’s no magic wand that I or anyone else can wield to make this disruption go away.”

He continued: “But what I can say is that where others see threat, I see opportunity — especially given CNN’s great brand and the strength of its journalism.”

Since Mr. Thompson left The Times, he has served on a number of boards, including that of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the genealogy company Ancestry and Axel Springer, the German media giant that purchased Politico in 2021.

In June, Mr. Thompson was knighted for his services to media during King Charles’s “Birthday Honours.”

A top challenge for Mr. Thompson at CNN will be its transition to a more digital-focused future as the cable business declines.

Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it would introduce a dedicated CNN channel on Max, the company’s streaming service, in late September. Unlike its cable and broadcast news competitors, CNN Max will simulcast at least three flagship shows — hosted by Jake Tapper, Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper — from its parent network.

Mr. Thompson will also have to steady the nerves of a network with more than 4,000 employees worldwide.

In December 2021, CNN’s leading prime-time star, Chris Cuomo, was fired during an ethics inquiry. Two months later, the CNN chairman Jeff Zucker was abruptly pushed out of the network.. By April 2022, just days after the creation of Warner Bros. Discovery, Mr. Zaslav and senior executives quickly pulled the plug on CNN+, an expensive streaming platform that Mr. Zucker had intended to represent the network’s digital future.

This year, Don Lemon, the prime-time anchor turned morning show host, was fired not long after he made ageist and sexist comments.

Amid all the turmoil at the network over the past 20 months, viewership has fallen sharply. In August, MSNBC widened its weekday prime-time ratings lead over CNN to its biggest margin since February 2020. Fox News’s lead is even bigger.

Still, CNN has continued to win plaudits for its journalism. This year, the network received more news and documentary Emmy nominations than any other cable news network.

Since Mr. Licht’s ouster, the network has been run by three veterans of CNN — Amy Entelis, Virginia Moseley and Eric Sherling — as well as David Leavy, who is a longtime lieutenant of Mr. Zaslav.

Over the last two months, those four have made programming changes, including installing a full-time anchor for CNN’s morning show and completing a prime-time lineup that had been in flux for more than a year. Mr. Thompson was not involved with those changes, according to two people familiar with the recruitment process, though he was briefed on them.

In his note, Mr. Zaslav thanked the four leaders and acknowledged the turmoil that the network’s staff has endured. Warner Bros. Discovery said in its statement they would continue in their roles, reporting to Mr. Thompson.

“I want to say that I recognize change is not easy, and I know you’ve been through a lot of it,” Mr. Zaslav wrote.