press conference on Thursday pulled no verbal punches when it came to the media, but it was probably CNN which got hit the hardest. Shortly after the conference ended, Variety ran a story in which CNN president Jeff Zucker assured everyone that the network is fine:
President Trump’s steady stream of attacks on CNN’s credibility has not hurt the news organization’s reputation in the minds of consumers, nor has it scared away any advertisers. That was the word from CNN president Jeff Zucker and top Turner execs Thursday at a state-of-the-company luncheon presentation in Manhattan.
Zucker said CNN conducted its largest-ever brand survey last month out of a desire to gauge whether Trump’s broadsides about CNN serving up “fake news” were having a lasting impact on prospective viewers.
“There has been no diminution whatsoever in the CNN brand,” Zucker said. “It’s as strong as it’s ever been. It’s incredibly trusted and we see no impact whatsoever in all of those attacks on the CNN brand.”
So, according to a CNN survey, CNN is just fine.
A variation on that theme was written up in The Hollywood Reporter on Friday.
CNN was cratering in the ratings in 2012 when Zucker was brought on board, and it had a well-known critic even back then, as reported in this Politico piece:
The bad news just keeps coming for CNN, and it couldn't be happening at a worse time.
Just one day after Donald Trump criticized the network's low ratings during a highly contentious interview with host Wolf Blitzer, CNN has registered its worst monthly primetime ratings in over 20 years.
An average of 389,000 viewers watched CNN primetime between April 30 and May 27, a 51 percent drop from May 2011. By comparison, Fox News averaged 1,692,000 total viewers (a 9 percent drop), while MSNBC averaged 674,000 total viewers (a 19 percent drop).
When Zucker took over at CNN, he had some clear goals about what he wanted to accomplish at the floundering network. CNN reported on those goals shortly after the announcement of Zucker's hiring:
Jeff Zucker wants to inject more “passion” into CNN. He wants to help the network “broaden the definition of what news is.” And he wants to beat Fox News Channel and MSNBC in the ratings.
CNN's nemesis was Zucker's champion at the time:
