Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN Worldwide, seemed to be having a blast Wednesday evening at a party for a new original series. Perched on the arm of a chair, he watched intently as a magician performed tricks with coins, cards and a Rubik’s cube.
At CNN, Mr. Zucker — the once-wunderkind TV news executive who turns 50 next year — could use some magic of his own.
Twenty months after taking over one of the most prominent news brands, Mr. Zucker is still trying to define CNN’s place in a world of unlimited real-time information. He is laying off journalists and cutting expenses while trying to keep a once-leading cable network relevant in the digital age. The efforts largely remain a work in progress, underlining the stark challenges facing the news business.
So far this year, CNN ratings are hovering near 20-year lows. Average prime-time viewers are down about 6 percent to 176,000, compared with 2013, in the audience that attracts the most revenue for news channels, viewers between the ages of 25 and 54. Total day viewers this year are down 7.6 percent, to 122,000, according to Nielsen.
Continue reading the main story“There is no evidence right now that any of that strategy is working,” said Kannan Venkateshwar, a media analyst at Barclays. “The bigger question is, In this kind of an ecosystem, where does CNN fit in?” ’
Mr. Zucker declined to be quoted for this article, but other CNN executives said that their boss’s vision — mixing breaking news with original series, while investing heavily in digital operations — was showing early signs of success and gaining momentum. As evidence, they pointed to increases in viewers for both total daytime and prime time during the third quarter this year, compared with the same period in 2013. They also noted that CNN now ranked in second place among cable news networks, overtaking MSNBC in viewers 25 to 54. (When Mr. Zucker started, the network was in third place.) Executives also highlighted CNN’s strength online, reaching about 123 million unique United States visitors in August. And despite its challenges, CNN earns hundreds of millions of dollars and is on track to have its most profitable year ever, network executives said, though analysts forecast a falling growth rate.
CNN has company in the ratings struggle, as the total audience for cable news has been on the decline for the last several years. This year, MSNBC has suffered a 12 percent drop, to 184,000, in average prime-time viewers ages 25 to 54, compared with last year. At Fox News, which continues to dominate the category, that figure has fallen 1.3 percent to 298,000, according to Nielsen.
Changing Fortunes for Cable News
Over the last five years, the audience for cable news networks has been declining.
Average prime-time cable news viewers
2.5
million viewers
Fox News
2.0
1.5
CNN
1.0
0.5
MSNBC
0
’97
’00
’05
’10
’14
2014 figures through Sept. 14
The urgency for Mr. Zucker to fix CNN became more pressing after its parent, Time Warner, rejected a takeover effort by 21st Century Fox this summer. Time Warner must now prove to its shareholders that it can grow on its own and deliver profits. As a result, the company’s Turner Broadcasting System division, which includes CNN, is in the middle of job reductions and other cost-cutting initiatives.
Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner, said during a recent investor call that he was excited about the evolution at CNN “but there’s still a lot more to do.”
One change that Mr. Zucker has made is emphasizing breaking news, focusing coverage on just two or three major stories throughout a given day, rather than delivering an all-encompassing, scattershot report of the headlines as was common in the past. The rationale is that viewers are likely to catch other news on the web or on social media. Mr. Zucker leads daily news meetings, unlike past CNN chiefs who delegated the responsibility. Employees called Mr. Zucker a micromanager and said that he sent missives from his BlackBerry at all hours about everything, be it the length of story segments or the graphics that appear on screen.
On Thursday, that approach meant the Ebola outbreak and the Secret Service controversy dominated airtime. This year, CNN was mocked for committing near wall-to-wall coverage to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, but Mr. Zucker has boasted that the network posted better ratings than its rivals during that stretch.
Mr. Zucker has also broadened the definition of news at CNN. Its original series are now central to his growth strategy. Ratings at the network have long tracked with the news cycle: Major events draw viewers, while fewer people tune in during slow periods. To smooth out its ratings — and attract new, younger audiences — CNN ramped up its investment in original nonfiction programming and documentaries.
Though plans for some series, like Anthony Bourdain’s travel and food show “Parts Unknown,” were hatched before Mr. Zucker arrived, none had made it to air. On Wednesday, CNN celebrated “Somebody’s Gotta Do It,” a new show hosted by Mike Rowe about people and their passions. Twelve original series are planned for 2015.
“The big-picture goal is to really do very high-quality, nonfiction premium content that is complementary to what CNN does every day,” said Amy Entelis, senior vice president for talent and content development at CNN Worldwide.
CNN’s push into original programming has its risks. Producing an hour of an original series is much costlier than producing an hour of news. And should a big story break, CNN has to pre-empt the shows for news coverage, possibly alienating viewers. Yet there are also potential rewards: Donna Speciale, president of ad sales for Turner Broadcasting, said that the original series and documentaries had helped increase ad rates and gained more than 60 new advertisers.
Overseeing a combination of original programming and news is not new to Mr. Zucker, a polarizing executive who nearly a quarter-century ago led NBC’s morning show, “Today,” on a dominant run as the most profitable and most watched program on television. In 2007, he became head of all of NBCUniversal. After Comcast took control of the company in 2011, Mr. Zucker left, with critics blaming the network’s fall to fourth place on his management missteps.
Weeks into his new role as president of CNN Worldwide in 2013, Mr. Zucker told some confidants that the job was much bigger than he had expected. The scope, and the challenges, of CNN’s round-the-clock, live global news operation were vast and daunting. Prime-time ratings at the domestic cable news network had plummeted to its lowest in two decades. The international arm covered dozens of countries. And while audiences were flocking to CNN on the Internet and on mobile, revenue lagged.
Like the rest of the news business, CNN has focused intently on expanding its digital operation. Despite broader layoffs, CNN has added about 50 employees in the last five months to its online division. “In many ways, digital is the entry point to the CNN brand now,” said Kenneth Estenson, senior vice president and general manager of CNN.com.
CNN now ranks as the third-most-trafficked news and information digital outlet in the United States, attracting 122.6 million unique visitors to its web and mobile properties in August, up 32 percent from the same period last year, according to comScore.
Mr. Zucker continues to tinker with CNN’s programming. He has increased live news coverage on CNN by five hours a day, largely through the addition of an overnight feed of CNN International. After some initial experiments, the “New Day” morning show now focuses less on fluff and more on news. “Crossfire,” a once-popular current events debate program that Mr. Zucker revived with hosts like Newt Gingrich, has been withdrawn. He also ended Piers Morgan’s live talk show. And still on Mr. Zucker’s to-do list is determining the fate of HLN, a sister network.
Christopher Geraci, president of national broadcast at Omnicom’s OMD media buying group, said that while CNN remained a powerful brand, the competition for viewers and ad dollars grew fiercer every day. “It’s a tough marketplace for any news organization,” he said. “There’s a lot of news out there.”
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