Chris Licht Releases Statement On CNN Exit: “I’ve Learned A Lot Over The Past 13 Months”

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter At the end of last summer, Flix Brewhouse faced a dire situation, albeit one that wasn’t unique to the Texas-based movie theater chain. There weren’t any movies to show in August. “We were going to A24 or Briarcliff Entertainment saying, ‘Does anyone have anything we can put on our screens?” recalls Chris Randleman, the company’s chief revenue officer. That’s not the case this summer as exhibitors grapple with a different reality. Can several back-to-back blockbusters succeed at once? Or will the glut of big movies cannibalize each other? Those are the big questions as popcorn season kicks into high gear with the arrivals of Harrison Ford’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (June 30), Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” (July 12), Greta Gerwig’s neon-coated “Barbie” (July 21) and Christopher Nolan’s atomic bomb drama “Oppenheimer” (also on July 21). All of those films carry big budgets and require outsized ticket sales to turn a profit.

Participating in Fox’s Stars on Mars has allowed Tom Schwartz to start to feel like himself again after his divorce from Katie Maloney.

began. “Chris made mistakes, right? He made mistakes and as I said, he learned from mistakes. Zaslav decided to fire him or to let him go.

While Conor McGregor is a champion fighter, he has faced a series of ups and downs inside — and outside — the Octagon.

Rammstein drummer Christoph Schneider has spoken out about the current allegations against Till Lindemann.Schneider took to his social media to express his feelings about the situation with the band’s frontman. Lindemann is currently being investigated by prosecutors in Berlin, following multiple allegations of sexual assault.The statement posted to Schneider’s official social media accounts (translated from German) read: “Dear people, I would like to share my personal emotions and thoughts with you. The accusations of the last few weeks have deeply shaken us as a band and me as a person.

Addie Morfoot Contributor When the American Film Institute announced last year that it was merging AFI Docs, the organization’s annual Washington, D.C., documentary film festival, into the Los Angeles-based AFI Fest, Jamie Shor called Sky Sitney.Shor, president of PR Collaborative, and Sitney, director of the film and media studies program at Georgetown, had both previously worked for AFI Docs. Shor’s publicity firm had done work for the former festival, previously known as Silverdocs, while Sitney served as AFI Docs festival director from 2005-2014.“Sky and I were both thinking to ourselves that Washington, D.C., was not going to have a doc presence,” says Shor.

Chris Hemsworth cozies up to wife Elsa Pataky on the red carpet of the Extraction 2 premiere in Berlin!

Tribeca Film Festival, is about a man who shaped the historical stories of the recent past: news anchor Dan Rather. “I like telling stories about ordinary people in extraordinary situations,” Marshall told TheWrap. “It’s so interesting to see how these people who are inspired and then passionate about what they want to do, how they achieve that success.” In this case, Marshall wanted to track Rather’s 60-year career in news and how he’s become just as embraced by the TikTok generation as he was when he did “60 Minutes.”“I go in completely open-minded,” Marshall said when discussing whether he approached Rather’s story with any preconceived notions.

The group of executives who are leading CNN on an interim basis made their first comments to staffers on Thursday, vowing to make “this period as smooth as possible.”

Chris Licht’s ouster as CEO at CNN, Joe Scarborough argued that Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav should have kept Licht on for the full term of his two-year-contract. “Zaslav gave Chris two years; I wish Chris had been given the two years Zaslav promised him,” Scarborough told The New York Times.

Chris Licht has broken his silence following his abrupt departure as CEO and Global Chairman of CNN Wednesday morning, calling his tenure “exciting but incredibly challenging.”“This was an exciting but incredibly challenging assignment, and I learned a lot over the past 13 months,” Licht said in a statement to media. “I’ve been lucky enough to have had a successful, fulfilling career, and I look forward to my next chapter.”Licht’s statement comes hours the former CEO’s ouster was announced by Warner Bros.

The abrupt yet not-all-too-surprising exit of Chris Licht from CNN is a bit of a relief for staffers who thought he was the wrong person for the job, but whoever succeeds him at the cable news network will face many of the same headwinds.

Top leaders of CNN’s PR team that oversaw The Atlantic’s disastrous profile of Chris Licht have been fired, TheWrap has confirmed. EVP and global head of communications and marketing Kris Coratti Kelly and head of strategic communications Matt Dornic were among those ousted.According to a source familiar with the decision, the network began cleaning out its communications team Wednesday, just hours after the embattled CEO exited amid plunging ratings and growing discontent within his news staff. The news comes following Licht’s firing on Wednesday.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Some people only get one chance to run CNN. Amy Entelis is about to embark on her second. The veteran news executive was one of three who took the reins at the Warner Bros. Discovery news outlet when Jeff Zucker, the previous chief, was forced out in February of last year after acknowledging a romantic relationship with Allison Gollust, once CNN’s chief marketing officer. Now Entelis will be part of a new trio leading the news giant after the Wednesday departure of former CEO Chris Licht. The challenges facing CNN have not diminished. Entelis will guide CNN’s news operations along with Virginia Moseley, recently named to oversee editorial operations, and Eric Sherling, recently appointed head of U.S. programming. David Leavy, a longtime Zaslav lieutenant who was named chief operating officer at CNN last week, will oversee business activities. The entire group must keep CNN moving forward as the 2024 presidential election cycle draws near, even as the outlet’s ratings have fallen and its staff has been buffeted by job cuts, programming changes and a seemingly endless cycle of senior executives coming and going.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic The departure of CNN’s Chris Licht, following his turbulent year atop the cable news network, places a pause on one of the great media stories of the decade so far. But even non-media-junkies can appreciate just how strange and how strenuously rocking had been Licht’s time at the network: It played out across screens. The trouble with being the place that invented the 24-hour news cycle is that those hours can come back to bite when you’re the story. There it was in politics, when Donald Trump’s “Town Hall,” with purported rising star Kaitlan Collins, gear-shifted into the first televised rally of the 2024 presidential cycle — with CNN’s air being used to depict an audience of Trump supporters cheering on his jibes. (No less an eminence than Christiane Amanpour, a CNN icon, registered her dissent in public.) There it was on the business pages, with Licht’s overseeing the dismantling of streaming product CNN+, on orders from Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav, setting the tone for his tenure. There it was at the Oscars, when Michelle Yeoh used her best actress acceptance speech to rebuke anchor Don Lemon’s bizarre on-air comments about a woman’s “prime” years. There it was in the gossip pages, after a Variety story about Lemon’s comportment toward his female co-anchors on the network’s flagship morning show, and then his ouster, leaked into the tabloids, and never seemed to be countered by any good news about the network. And, finally, there it was at length, with an all-access profile by the Atlantic’s Tim Alberta revealing Licht’s contempt for predecessor Jeff Zucker and the depths of his disdain for and, frankly, confusion about CNN’s mission.

exited his position of CEO at CNN on Wednesday morning and, for many online, it was no big surprise. A fairly large swath of folks on Twitter actually dubbed it “karma” for Licht’s firing of CNN anchor Don Lemon.Licht’s one-year tenure as CEO and Chairman of CNN Worldwide was turbulent from start to finish, with a disastrous Donald Trump town hall and an unflattering profile in The Atlantic finally breaking staff morale.

the ousting of his handpicked CNN CEO Chris Licht in an internal memo to employees on Wednesday.“I have known Chris for many years and have enormous respect for him, personally and professionally. This job was never going to be easy, especially at a time of great disruption and transformation, and Chris poured his heart and soul into it,” Zaslav wrote.

Chris Licht will be leaving CNN after just one year as chief executive and chairman.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor CNN CEO Chris Licht will leave his post after a little more than a year at the helm after losing the support of staff and enacting a series of chaotic editorial changes under the direction of parent company Warner Bros. Discovery. David Zalsalv, CEO of the embattled news outlet, told staffers Wednesday of the decision during CNN’s reglar editorial call, according to two people familiar with the matter. Amy Entelis, a longtime CNN executive who worked with previous chief Jeff Zucker and helps manage talent relations; Virginia Moseley, recenlty named to oversee editorial operations; and Eric Sherling, recently appointed head of U.S. programming, will oversee CNN for an interim period, Zaslav said. David Leavy, a longtime Zaslav lieutenant who was named chief operating officer at CNN last week, will oversee business activities.

Chris Licht is stepping down as the chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, ending a tumultuous tenure as the first leader of the network under parent Warner Bros. Discovery.