chris licht fucked up. I mean he really fucked up.....bigly.
Not only did he give donald trump a national forum a day after trump was found, by a jury of his peers, to have sexually assaulted a woman, but to have caused her mental anguish by slandering her as only trump can do. That cost him five million dollars. Licht also had the audacity to call this event a "town hall" when the room was made up of donald trump supporters and "independent" trump leaners (whatever the fuck that means). This was a campaign rally fully funded by cnn as a way to ingratiate their platform to the indicted ex-president as the 2024 presidential campaign starts to gear up. Finally, cnn threw him some red meat by having a young, intelligent woman on the stage with him. He accommodated by calling her a nasty person.
chris licht is a ratings whore. His predecessor jeff zucker was a ratings whore.
Former NBC evp for program planning Preston Beckman told Smith: “Zucker's thirst for ratings blinded him to the damage he was doing by offering saturation Trump coverage.” “He's a ratings whore — and I'm telling you that as a ratings whore”
That's me in a New York Times article on Zucker before he was canned by cnn for doing some dumb shit.
As I alluded to in my post, I am a ratings whore and it takes one to know one. The thing about being a ratings whore is that the short term rush of doing something dispicable for a rating often has negative results down the road. I think that may happen over at cnn. Whatever benefits they thought this stunt would get them may also cost them far more than the ratings bump.
UPDATE: THE TOWN HALL DID NOT GIVE cnn THE RATINGS BUMP THEY WERE HOPING FOR
I have done things for ratings and, this morning, I asked myself what was the most hideous thing I ever did and it was easy...OJ.
I don't think I ever shared this with you all so enjoy.....
Somewhere around 2004 I was at FOX Broadcasting. rupert murdoch was in town and I was at a meeting with him, Mike Darnell our unscripted king, Peter Liguori our boss and maybe some others. At the meeting rupert told us that judith regan, a sleazeball author who had a publishing deal with Harper Collins (owned by Newscorp), was in the process of writing a book called "If I Did It" where oj simpson speculates as to how he would have murdered his wife Nicolle and her friend Ron Goldman.....if he did it. rupert said that, as part of the book deal, there would be a special where simpson would talk about the murders.....if he did them. This was pretty sensational shit and I believe rupert said we would air the special.
OK filed away. Over the course of my career I have heard many bizzaro pitches so nothing really shocks me, especially when your partner in crime is Mike Darnell.
I'd say about a year or more had passed since this meeting when, one day, I see that regan's oj book was about to be published. Remember I am a ratings whore. I walked down to Mike's office and asked him if he remembered the conversation and, of course he did....another ratings whore. Mike and I walked over to Liguori's office and we reminded him of the conversation. Peter didn't blink. I don't remember if he called Peter Chernin's office or rupert's but we quickly got the go ahead to do the special.
We kept the interview quiet. Other than me, Darnell and Liguori, maybe someone in business affairs, legal and press and publicity were aware. I'm sure we did not alert sales far in advance and we did not say a thing to our affiliates. We were certain we had a huge rating on our hands.
Darnell shot the interview in privacy. I have never seen it but Mike told me it was terrifying and if it terrorfied Mikey it must have been terrifying.
The day before we were going to announce the special I was in New York. I was going to be on a panel with other network execs the following day. Liguori decided to call his senior staff together and reveal what was about to happen. I was on the phone for the meeting. Peter walked through everything and there was a deafening silence. Finally the dam burst and my fellow execs voiced their anger with the special. After a few minutes of that I chimed in.
"Uh gang I 'm in New York and I'm going to be on a well attended panel at some sales conference. What should I do do?"
Deafening silence.
I begged that we put off the announcement until after the panel but it was too late.
I did not sleep that night trying to figure out what I was going to say. The next morning I was met by three FOX press people who escorted me to the conference. They were giving me talking points but I was pretty numb. The first question on the panel was to me to explain the oj special. I answered it but have no idea what I said. I was pretty much ignored for the rest of the session.
Over the course of the day the outrage grew and rupert finally pulled the plug on the special and the book. Of course he took no responsibility for any of this.
We survived but we already had a reputation. cnn will suffer for not stopping the town hall, and the rush of a rating will subside quickly; the outrage and damage to the platform will continue for quite a while longer.
chris licht is finding out that there are consequences for being a ratings whore. I should know.
