San Francisco Frontiers - CNN's future unclear as Trump applies pressure

WBD has urged shareholders to reject a hostile takeover bid from Paramount Skydance, in favor of a deal offered by streaming giant Netflix.

Paramount's CEO David Ellison -- whose father is Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, a close Trump ally -- has assured the US president that he would retool CNN's editorial stance and lineup if his bid were successful, The Wall Street Journal reported.

That could put on-air talent such as Kaitlan Collins and Jake Tapper, who have both drawn Trump's ire, in jeopardy.

And Trump appears ready to use the situation to his advantage, saying openly that he will be involved in the government's decision on an eventual deal, instead of leaving it to the Justice Department.

"I don't think the people that are running that company right now and running CNN, which is a very dishonest group of people, I don't think that should be allowed to continue," Trump told business leaders last week at the White House.

"I think CNN should be sold along with everything else."

- 'Perilous time' -

Trump has long had a hostile relationship with CNN and other major news organizations, branding them "fake news" and attacking them repeatedly on social media.

His insistence that CNN end up in friendly hands appears to favor the Paramount bid — even though the Netflix deal would also involve selling off the news network to an as-yet-unknown buyer.

Ellison's group obtained regulatory approval in July for a merger between Paramount and Skydance after committing to modify the editorial direction of CBS network.

"President Trump has publicly put a bullseye on the television news network," University of Maryland broadcast journalism professor Mark Feldstein told AFP.

"I think this is a very perilous time for CNN both politically and economically," he said.

"Paramount's craven tilt to the right would clearly pose a threat to CNN's editorial independence, but it's not clear that the news network would be much better off if Netflix buys Warner Brothers and leaves CNN out of the deal, either."

CNN is popular with left-leaning viewers but is regularly watched by 20 percent of Republicans, according to a Pew Research study.

Under Netflix's deal, WBD would likely spin off CNN and its other television networks into a separate company called Discovery Global.

CNN would thus wind up part of a highly-indebted public company with weak growth prospects and still on cable television, which has been losing millions of subscribers in the United States each year.

In that context, it would be tough for Discovery Global to justify investing money in CNN because it will need to focus on its overall bottom line, said Madison and Wall consulting firm chief executive Brian Wieser.

- 'Get after our audiences' -

Under the leadership of former New York Times and BBC head Mark Thompson, CNN is undergoing a major strategic reorientation to reduce its dependence on traditional television audiences.

In October, it launched a subscription service (at $6.99 per month) that includes streaming access to most programs as well as the CNN.com website, which introduced a paywall nearly a year ago.

Thompson said recently that a study commissioned by CNN showed that some 18 million Americans who had ditched cable television since the coronavirus pandemic would be "very interested" in paying for standalone subscriptions.

"To continue to keep CNN strong in the future," the executive argued, "we better get after our audiences where they currently are."

Fox News, CNBC, Newsmax and even NBC News have attempted streaming-only products, but all of them are add-ons.

Once the leading all-news network, CNN now attracts fewer than 500,000 viewers on average per day -- far behind rivals MSNBC and Fox News, but also the home improvement channel HGTV -- but maintains it is still profitable.

CNN nevertheless "still holds an important place within the broader news media landscape, especially given its brand power and global reach," said University of Pennsylvania media policy professor Victor Pickard.

For Wieser, "the best thing for CNN would be to sell it separately. But the problem is there's almost no way that will happen without the Trump administration involving itself."

T.Martin--SFF