Following CNN media analyst Brian Stelter’s exit from the cable news network earlier in August when his show ‘Reliable Sources’ was cancelled, Chris Licht, newly appointed CEO warned employees that more changes will take place in the company.

“This is a time of change, and I know that it’s unsettling,” Licht said on Friday, August 20 during a meeting with the CNN staffers. “There will be more changes and you might not understand it or like it all,” he added.

Licht also thanked Brian Stelter, who will host his final CNN show on Sunday, August 21, saying he appreciates the latter’s years of work and wished him the best for the future.

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Licht was appointed in May 2022, replacing Jeff Zucker, who left CNN following an office romance with Allison Gollust, who has also left the network. 

Who is Chris Licht?

Christopher Andrew Licht was born in October 1971 in Newtown, Connecticut in the United States. He later graduated from the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications of Syracuse University in 1993, where he pursued a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism and political science. The University later named one of the TV news control rooms at its Dick Clark Studios and Alan Gerry Center for Media Innovation in the honor of Licht in 2014.

He began his career in Los Angeles, working at KNBC during the trial of OJ Simpson. Licht’s career saw him working with NBC reporters at the ground level in LA and San Francisco. The journalist joined MSNBC in 2005 as an executive producer for Scarborough Country. He later became one of the founding executive producers of Morning Joe two years later.

Licht switched once again in 2011 when he joined cable news conglomerate CBS as a vice president of programming. After the company launched This Morning Edition show in 2012, he became the executive producer of it. He also accompanied Stephen Colbert on The Late Show four years later.

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He is known widely as one of the reasons for the success of CBS This Morning. After a few years, he became the executive producer and showrunner of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It was at this time that he began to handle management issues. Licht then joined CNN in May 2022 when Jeff Zucker left the company and was named the CEO. 

A veteran journalist, Licht has won many awards in his long and successful career. His show CBS This Morning won the Peabody Award and three Emmy Awards. He was also nominated for the Emmy Award individually thrice in 2015. In 2016, the CBS show won another Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism, when Licht was a co-executive producer of the show.