CNN president’s Jeff Zucker to step down at year’s end

CNN president Jeff Zucker will leave the cable news network at the end of 2021, CNN said on Thursday.

Zucker, who joined CNN in 2013, has a storied reputation in the TV business marked by early success. He was the executive producer of NBC’s “Today” show in his 20s, then became the president of NBC Entertainment.

CNN, part of AT&T’s WarnerMedia division, has been on a ratings tear as the United States enters a new political era, delivering record ratings in January as the top cable news network that month, with a 153% increase in total viewers from the same period a year ago.

Under WarnerMedia Chief Executive Jason Kilar, AT&T is investing heavily in its HBO Max streaming service, a company priority at a time when consumers are increasingly dropping their cable packages in favor of a la carte streaming services.

(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York Editing by Vinay Dwivedi and Howard Goller