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CNN CEO Chris Licht confirms he plans to step down, replaced by Amy Entelis in the interim, after a damaging Atlantic profile and Donald Trump town hall — Chris Licht, the embattled CEO of CNN, plans to step down, he confirmed to Axios on Wednesday. Licht has been on the job for 13 months.
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CNN has also let go Chris Licht's top lieutenants, including comms chief Kris Coratti, strategic comms head Matt Dornic, and chief of staff Devan Cayea — After news dropped on Wednesday morning that CNN's CEO Chris Licht had been fired from the ratings-beleaguered network …
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Adweek, Insider, Politico, New York Post, @sarafischer, Axios and Boing Boing

Chris Licht managed talent poorly and the push to shift CNN to the center politically failed, but the fundamental issue is that cable news is in secular decline — Chris Licht will be stepping down as the CEO and Chairman of CNN. His departure was first reported by Puck News early Wednesday.

WBD CEO David Zaslav has a history of tearing down and renovating what he considers to be underperforming cable assets, but this strategy might not work for CNN — Analysis: Warner Bros. Discovery's news giant is no fixer-upper, and probably shouldn't be treated as such

Internal memo: WBD CEO David Zaslav addressed Chris Licht's departure, saying “I take responsibility” and “things did not work out the way we had hoped”
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The LA Times is cutting 74 newsroom jobs, representing 13% of total staff; layoffs will affect some editors, audio producers, and the audience engagement team — The Los Angeles Times is cutting its newsroom staff, becoming the latest news organization to contract amid economic pressures brought …
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Sources: Lloyds puts B.UK, a holding company that controls the Telegraph titles and The Spectator, into receivership over ~£1B debts owed by the Barclay family — UK bank to seek sale of media group over almost £1bn in debts owed by Barclay family
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Sources: Amazon plans to launch an ad-supported Prime Video tier and is talking with WBD and Paramount about adding their ad-based tiers to Prime Video Channels — Discussions come as ad buyers have been pushing for more access to premium shows and movies — Amazon is planning to launch …
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Q&A with SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz on operating a satellite business, hardware dependency, online content delivery, podcasts, company structure, and more — SiriusXM scooped up Stitcher, Pandora, and Team Coco in recent years, but satellite radio in cars still drives the business.
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@siriusxmlife

Sources: MLS and Apple discussed sharing new Season Pass subscriber revenue with Lionel Messi; on June 6, Apple unveiled a four-part Messi docuseries on TV+ — Major League Soccer and Inter Miami are solidifying details around the potential signing of Argentine superstar Lionel Messi.
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Tucker Carlson posts the first episode of his new show, Tucker on Twitter; the episode was just over 10 minutes long and appeared to be from his home in Maine — Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson released the first episode of his new show on Twitter Tuesday evening.
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A look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe yanking Hollywood into a franchise-drunk era, in which IP, over star power or directorial vision, drives what gets made — Robert Redford, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Rudd, and Angela Bassett now disappear into movies whose plots can come down to “Keep glowy thing away from bad guy.”
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Spotify combining Gimlet and Parcast into a single unit signals a move from pricey originals to amateur podcasters and creator partnerships — When Spotify announced yesterday that it would lay off 200 employees from its podcast unit and combine Gimlet and Parcast into a single operation, it came as a shock to outside observers.
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New York Times, Digiday and TechCrunch