CNN’s Lineup Changes: The Flawed Thinking Behind Mark Thompson’s Latest Move | Analysis
CNN made some key changes to its lineup on Thursday, including removing Jim Acosta, one of its best-known reporters, from his daily morning show. But will those tweaks be enough to win back viewers? Such improvement appears unlkely, as CEO Mark Thompson continues to seek a broader framework to address the formidable array of challenges plaguing CNN’s entire business model.
Yes, ditching Acosta — who has had a well-publicized contentious relationship with President Donald Trump, who reentered the White House this week — was a notable move, one that many will perceive as an olive branch to the new administration.
Still, the changes are more cosmetic than colossal: Jake Tapper, perhaps the network’s most respected anchor, saw his start time moved back an hour to 5 p.m. ET; Wolf Blitzer, who has been with the network since 1990, will now do his two-hour show in the morning instead of the evening; and both Kaitlan Collins and Anderson Cooper’s shows will remain in their same nightly time slot.
It is hard to expect a major ratings boost when the channel’s main faces remain the same.
Before the formal announcement Thursday, several of the changes had been leaked to media outlets. But even if some of the moves appear warranted, they don’t address the other challenges with which the network is grappling. Those hurdles include, but aren’t limited to, dwindling ratings, declining revenue driven by “cord cutting” that has assailed the entire cable business, and a collapse in public trust of mainstream journalism.
CNN’s primetime viewership — just like MSNBC’s — cratered in the weeks following the 2024 presidential election. The network’s primetime ratings dropped 35% to 470,000 viewers by mid-November. By contrast, Fox News — which enjoys a much cozier relationship with Trump — saw its primetime audience grow 34%, to 3.157 million viewers following his electoral victory.
While Fox’s rivals have regained some audience after losing viewers to what many saw as election fatigue, a full ratings recovery has still not occurred for CNN, with its primetime lineup averaging 501,000 viewers during the first week of January.
A person with knowledge of CNN’s changes said it is too simplistic to point to the network’s ratings being down. The CNN source pointed out there were only 161 million cable subscribers in the U.S. on Inauguration Day 2025, compared to 251 million in 2017 — a byproduct of the aforementioned cord cutting — so a ratings decline is expected.
Instead, the changes, the person said, signify a fundamental shift for CNN, which intends to prioritize its digital and streaming business moving forward. CNN announced a $70 million investment into its digital business on Thursday, and said it would add at least 100 new roles this year for a new streaming service. (Those announcements came at the same time CNN laid off another 200 staffers.)
Whether revenue growth comes from CNN’s cable or digital business, one side needs to pick up the slack because the network is not making as much money as it used to.
In a defamation lawsuit that CNN lost last week to a U.S. Navy veteran, a forensic economist for the plaintiff found the company’s revenue had dropped 18.1% from 2021 to 2023, sliding from $2.2 billion to $1.8 billion. CNN’s net worth was nearly sliced in half during that same period, from $4.4 billion in 2021 to $2.3 billion in 2023, according to the forensic economist.
A CNN spokesperson said those figures were inaccurate.
“The numbers represent the Plaintiff’s interpretation of a subset of data as presented in litigation, and they do not represent financial data for the whole of CNN’s business,” the spokesperson told TheWrap.
Perhaps more importantly, the defamation lawsuit came at a time when the American public’s trust in mainstream outlets like CNN has eroded.
CNN was ordered to pay the veteran $5 million, after a segment on Tapper’s show in 2021 said he “exploited” desperate Afghans fleeing the country on the “black market.” The network then settled with the veteran, Zachary Young, before a Florida jury could decide on punitive damages — a move that was reminiscent of CNN settling its defamation lawsuit with Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann back in 2020.
Headlines like that will not help CNN win back viewers or readers in an already-difficult climate for news outlets. An October Gallup poll from earlier this month found only 31% of Americans expressed a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the media to accurately report the news — a new all-time low. Americans are now turning to alternative sources like YouTube to get their news and opinions, while gravitating toward more partisan political sites that share their ideology.
In March, CNN’s Thompson laid out a five-point plan to restructure the network for the future in a difficult news environment. To the extent that Thompson is revamping the TV component of his business, leaving its core anchors in place will likely do little to reverse those trends.
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