Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
If you owned CNN and wanted to see how it was doing it the ratings, would you look only at the night that Trump was on?
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No, but if solely or almost entirely focused on ratings, I would look at that night as an example of what I should do more often.
The argument the public doesn't like libertarian news of a variety John Malone and Zaslav ostensibly wanted at CNN is correct, but that observation is misplaced in any analysis of why Licht failed.
Licht never sought to offer libertarian news, and for good reason. Nobody would want to see that. The majority of viewing audiences who'll tune in to cable news regularly are siloed. They want a slant, and libertarian views frustrate these sorts of people more than do their respective opponents. If one seeks the binary (My Tribe vs. Other), he doesn't want to hear news from a perspective critical of that black and white thinking. His opponent at least reinforces the view that there's a battle for the culture/country/whatever comprised of two warring camps. Those who question the legitimacy of that game challenge his entire view of how the world operates.
I think the clear takeaway from the postmortems on Licht is that he sullied the brand and misused Trump. Like it or not, for some reason, Trump remains compelling, getting more eyeballs than anybody else in the race (and arguably on the planet). Zucker played this for ratings by going to war with Trump. This acquired both ratings and gravitas. The yeomen in the trenches at CNN knew they were enabling and platforming a nutball for ratings, but they could abide it on the basis they were against him. Licht platformed Trump in a manner less confrontational and in parts positive (audience stacked with Trump friendly sorts). This risked reputational damage and angered the foot soldiers of the network who are almost entirely anti-Trump.
Licht's problem isn't that he wasn't going to make money for CNN. Trump's ratings show he was on to something. The problem was the culture of the place is incompatible with that level of cynical ratings-chasing. The other problem is that because of his unique nature, one cannot be agnostic on Trump. His attraction is the extreme polarization he creates, without which he wouldn't have succeeded as he has in politics. People like us can separate a man from his policies and look at the pluses and minuses (Immigration: Disaster; Tariffs: Stupid and Counterproductive; Expansion of Standard Deduction: Huge Help to the Working Class Renter Segment of Society, etc.). The average audience member cannot do this and does not want to do this. They are for him or against him and that's that. Licht tried to cover Trump as a normal candidate, and that Just Does Not Work.
