Americans have stopped watching CNN. Will being less Left wing save it?

CNN, the once omnipresent current affairs claxon, hit a new nadir this month, sinking to become the fourth most watched cable news network in America.

The once mighty voice of authority – with its solemn "This is CNN" catchphrase – was overtaken in the ratings by Newsmax, an upstart conservative rival with a fraction of the budget.

It highlighted a stunning decline for CNN, which has been beset by a series of scandals, rifts between presenters, a change of corporate ownership, and an apparent identity crisis which has seen it publicly criticised by some of its own biggest stars.

US television networks live and die by ratings, and the recent ones must have made CNN executives feel ill.

On Friday May 12, in primetime, Fox News averaged 1.4 million viewers, the left-leaning MSNBC news network scored 1.1 million, Newsmax drew 357,000, and CNN 335,000.

That meant only about one in 1,000 of the US population was watching CNN during peak viewing hours.

In the first three months of 2023, CNN no longer had a single programme in the top 25 shows on cable news, according to Nielsen ratings. In March, its primetime ratings were down 61 per cent year-on-year.

The ratings crisis comes against a backdrop of new ownership after CNN became part of the corporate behemoth Warner Bros Discovery last year.

Chris Licht, the newly installed chairman and chief executive, a veteran of launching successful morning news shows on other networks including CBS and MSNBC, has launched a strategic turnaround.

It involves making CNN less partisan than it was during the Trump presidency, less of an "advocacy network". But it is expected to take time.

Bitter row after Trump town hall

Mr Licht's most high-profile step so far – inviting Mr Trump on CNN for his first appearance since 2016 – has led to internal turmoil, and also appeared to have had the short-term effect of alienating some existing left-wing viewers.

The 70-minute town hall on May 10 saw CNN score a rare ratings victory, with 3.3 million viewers.

But it only served to crystallise the network's identity problem. It was accused by previously supportive Democrats, and even some of its own reporters and producers, of a desperate stunt to boost ratings.

The network had spent the last seven years attacking Mr Trump, and then suddenly offered him a megaphone, which he gratefully accepted. Some of CNN's traditional anti-Trump viewers turned off, perhaps permanently.

Two days after the town hall, Newsmax was boasting live on air that it was beating CNN.

Meanwhile, the network's own media reporter, Oliver Darcy, wrote on the CNN website: "It's hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening."

But that was nothing to what was to follow as Christiane Amanpour, the legendary British-born CNN war reporter, and currently the network's Chief International Anchor, opened fire on her own management.

As she gave the commencement address at the highly prestigious Columbia Journalism School in New York this week, Ms Amanpour called the Trump town hall an "earthquake".

The anchor, famed for her fearlessness in the Gulf War and Bosnia, said she had met with Mr Licht to “hear from him firsthand what he’d been thinking," and that they "had a very robust exchange of views.”

She said: “My management believes they did the right thing, a service to the American people. I still respectfully disagree.

"We know Trump and his tendencies, everyone does. He just seizes the stage and dominates. No matter how much flack the moderator tries to aim at the incoming, it doesn’t often work."

Ms Amanpour said she would have ended the town hall at the point where Mr Trump called the moderator, Kaitlan Collins, a "nasty person".

She said: “I would have dropped the mic at 'nasty person', but then that’s me. I’ve been in the ring for a long time with many of these people."

She added: "I can only hope that your trust in us might have been shaken, but not shattered. That you believe we can survive and rebuild that trust."

On Thursday this week, the CNN website found itself in the bizarre position of running an article - written by Mr Darcy - about Ms Amanpour's "dissent".

‘CNN should be ashamed of themselves’

It started something of an internal revolt with a series of on-air, production and other staff, including the high-profile anchors Jake Tapper and Sara Sidner, retweeting the article.

Ms Sidner, who was promoted by Mr Licht earlier this year, called Ms Amanpour the "best of us".

Nima Elbagir, CNN's chief international investigative correspondent, added: "Speaking truth to power is a fundamental part of our job but to speak truth to the power that signs your cheques? Christiane ⁦Amanpour showing everyone how it’s done."

Democrat politicians have chimed in, with New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leading the charge, saying "CNN should be ashamed of themselves."

Michael Fanone, a former police officer who was at the US Capitol during the riot on January 6, 2021, said: "I don’t believe for one second that this is about journalistic integrity. It’s about ratings and money."

But Mr Licht is standing by his quest to make CNN "non-partisan" and defended the town hall decision, in the process praising Ms Collins for a "masterful performance" and for "making a lot of news".

Ms Collins - who was also praised by many journalists for her handling of it, and chose to simply ignore being called a "nasty person" - was this week promoted to her own primetime show.

She had previously been part of Mr Licht's new breakfast programme "CNN This Morning," which failed to draw viewers and was beset by bad publicity after co-host Don Lemon, who has since been fired, suggested that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was "not in her prime".

In the wake of the Trump town hall CNN launched damage control as it sought to stop an exodus of liberal viewers.

Primetime anchor Anderson Cooper, looking straight into the camera, told them: "Many of you have expressed deep anger and disappointment. And I understand the anger about that, giving him [Mr Trump] the audience, the time. I get that.

"But this is what I also get. The man you were so disturbed to see and hear from last night, that man is the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president."

He added: "You have every right to be outraged and angry and never watch this network again. But do you think staying in your silo, and only listening to people you agree with, is going to make that person go away?"

Mr Licht has been strongly backed by David Zaslav, the chief executive of CNN's new owners Warner Bros. Discovery.

Republicans ‘are back on CNN’

On Thursday, Mr Zaslav told a media conference that the long-term strategy for CNN was clear - to get Republican guests back on so it wasn't an “advocacy network” any more.

He said: "Republicans are back on the air [on CNN]. Republicans weren’t on the air."

Mr Zaslav said that, during the four days of hearings to elect Kevin McCarthy as the Republican House Speaker in January, CNN had 75 Republicans on.

He said: "41 went on us before they went on Fox [News]. And the reason is, as I’ve said, and Chris [Licht] has too, to a number of them, they are not going to get one more vote on Fox News. They’ve already got that."

The media boss added: "CNN should be where people come for the best version of the truth and for journalism, and that is what we are building.

"We announced yesterday our new 9pm [with Kaitlan Collins]. Chris is rebuilding the network. It’s going to take some time. But advertisers are interested in CNN again. They don’t want to be part of an advocacy network. We’ve had meeting after meeting and they say, 'We are with you.'"

He also pointed to a YouGov poll suggesting that viewers' trust in CNN was up 11 percentage points as it became less partisan.

The ratings were better under Mr Licht’s predecessor, Jeff Zucker, during a period when it attacked Mr Trump.
But Mr Zaslav said: "Ratings be damned. We have the best journalists in the world, we need to show both sides of every issue."

Only time will tell whether there are more viewers for CNN in the political centre ground than there were on the left.

The question for Mr Licht is “how much time do they really have?” to turn it around, said one former CNN executive.

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