Mark Thompson, Former NYT Company CEO, to Serve As Next CNN CEO: Puck

• Puck reported CNN has tapped Mark Thompson to step in as CEO and chairman.
• Thompson formerly served as CEO of the New York Times Company and director general at the BBC.
• The news comes after Chris Licht stepped down following low ratings and what many called a PR disaster.

Mark Thompson, who formerly served as CEO of the New York Times Company and director general at the BBC, has been tapped to take over as CEO and chairman at CNN, Puck News first reported Tuesday.

Thompson’s takeover could be announced by CNN as soon as Wednesday, or even earlier, Puck’s Dylan Byers reported, citing two unnamed sources that know the company’s plans.

The news comes almost three months after the resignation of CEO Chris Licht, who stepped down less than a week after The Atlantic published an in-depth profile on him that left media bigwigs horrified, according to Insider Global Editor-in-Chief Nich Carlson.

Licht’s 13 months at CNN were characterized by big shakeups and a widely criticized town hall with former President Donald Trump.

David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN, announced the search for a new CNN boss a day after Licht’s departure and named three interim editorial leaders at the network.

On Monday, Semafor reported that Warner Bros. Discovery was looking at two British media figures for CNN’s top job — Thompson and James Harding, the former head of BBC News and a former editor of The Times of London.

But, Thompson — who was previously BBC’s director-general from 2004 to 2012 before joining the Times as CEO from 2012 to 2020 — was the leading candidate, per Semafor.

Thompson, who is currently the chairman of Ancestry, is credited with the transformation of the Times from a legacy media outlet into a digital media powerhouse with a successful paywall strategy.

The new CNN boss will have to deal with lifting the network’s flagging viewership and driving its streaming business. The network is launching a new streaming service, called CNN Max, next month.

CNN and Warner Bros. Discovery did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.