SUPPORTING STATEMENT: In August 2022, CNN’s profits fell below $1 billion for the first time since 2016.2
CNN’s ratings have likewise tanked:
•Its average audience in February 2022 was just 534,000, a 68% annual decline.3
•In June 2022, CNN averaged just 480,000 viewers, 13% down from May, its lowest daytime audience since November 2015.4
•In September 2023, CNN recorded its worst weekend ratings since 1991 among the critical 25- to 54-year-old demographic.5 It totaled just 55,000 viewers for its weekend lineup, including its Sunday morning political programming.6
The Company had to abandon its $300 million CNN+ streaming service a month after launch due to abysmal ratings. Fewer than 10,000 people used CNN+ daily in its first two weeks.7
The Board must now ask itself: "How did the network lose so many viewers and so much money?"
The answer is simple. Rather than sticking to unbiased reporting, CNN embraced a partisan lineup of hosts that parroted liberal talking points.8 It thereby alienated viewers and damaged its brand. In 2014, Pew found that one-third of people who identify or lean Republican said they distrusted CNN as a political news source.9 By 2019, that number had increased to 58% -- higher distrust than The New York Times, The Washington Post or MSNBC.10

Reigning in the network’s liberal bias by removing polarizing hosts like Brian Stelter, John Harwood, and Don Lemon is an important step,11 but it will do nothing to regain trust in the network if it continues with the same biased reporting.12
The Company’s movie business has also suffered. It cancelled its $70+ million "Batgirl" film because its "woke" version was "irredeemable," ranking as one of the most expensive movie cancellations ever.13 Its recent movie "The Flash" made history for DC after the film suffered the biggest second-weekend box office drop domestically after the movie plummeted 72.5% from its opening weekend.14 The movie featuring the erratic Ezra Miller earned just $15.3 million in the U.S. in its second weekend out after a $55 million opening weekend at the box office.15 Ezra Miller, who goes by the pronoun they/them, has been accused of grooming, preying on minors, choking fans and engaging in violence, yet nonetheless starred in a film that the Company brought to market, rather than cutting its losses and shelving the film, thereby also avoiding further reputational destruction.16
The Company’s privileging of executive political/social preferences over sound business judgment in its television and film productions has cost shareholders billions already.