CNN needs more than a new CEO. It needs a business strategy
Chris Licht, Chairman and CEO, CNN Worldwide, speaks onstage during the Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront 2023 at The Theater at Madison Square Garden on May 17, 2023 in New York City.

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav could have selected from a litany of reasons to fire Chris Licht as CNN's chief.

Licht, who left the network Wednesday after just over a year in the role, struggled with leadership style, lifting morale, programming decisions, how to cover former President Donald Trump and, ultimately, hubris.

But Licht's entire tenure at CNN could have turned out differently had he persuaded Zaslav to keep CNN+.

That may sound absurd. Hardly anyone watched CNN+ during its first two weeks of existence last year. Zaslav and several other Discovery executives, including current Warner Bros. Discovery head of streaming JB Perrette and now-CNN Chief Operating Officer David Leavy, were skeptical of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on niche or half-baked content ideas like "Jake Tapper's Book Club" and "Parental Guidance with Anderson Cooper." Leavy is now part of the executive team that will help Zaslav find a new CEO.

Zaslav thought CNN+ was a waste of resources for a company saddled with $50 billion of debt that needed to boost free cash flow and generate $3 billion in merger-related synergies. But before he made any decisions, he wanted to hear Licht's thoughts.

Licht was supposed to begin his job May 2, 2022, but he started a few weeks early to weigh in on CNN+. In several virtual conferences, he met with CNN+ head Andrew Morse, CNN+ general manager Alex MacCallum and CNN Chief Tech Officer Robyn Peterson, according to people familiar with the matter who declined to be identified due to the private nature of the talks. Perrette and Discovery streaming CFO Neil Chugani (who would become CNN's CFO) were also there.

Licht expressed his skepticism with the product's programming, according to people in the meeting. The discussion centered around the viability of offering a product named after CNN without actually featuring a live feed of the network's cable programming. Perrette told the CNN+ leadership to pause all marketing spending and not to launch on Roku.

While the CNN+ team came away from the meetings assuming the streaming service would likely be killed, they sent financials to Discovery's leadership. They budgeted to spend $440 million in 2022 and $550 million in 2023, the people said. The proposal called for CNN+ to turn a profit by 2025 and break even on the cumulative investment by 2028.

Less than three weeks later, CNN+ was dead. A Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson declined to comment on the details of the meetings.