Chris Wallace is “irate” at the ousting of CNN president Jeff Zucker and his future at the news network is uncertain, Radar has been told.
In a move that stunned Beltway television circles, the no-nonsense veteran anchor — son of legendary CBS correspondent Mike Wallace — announced he was leaving Fox News after 18 years for a prized gig at CNN’s new streaming-video outlet CNN+ in December.
At the time, the former Fox News Sunday anchor specifically cited Zucker as one of the reasons he joined the network.
“I am honored and delighted to join Jeff Zucker and his great team,” Wallace gushed in a statement just two hours after he quit Fox on December 12.
Zucker fawned over Wallace, too.
“It is not often that a news organization gets the opportunity to bring someone of Chris Wallace’s caliber on board,” the axed CNN boss said.
Wallace, 74, was slated to host a weekday interview program starting next year on CNN+, Zucker’s much-hyped new digital streaming platform.
In wake of the decision from WarnerMedia suits to oust Jeff Zucker, Wallace is said to be “second guessing his decision” even though he is believed to be earning $8 to $10 million per year.
Flashback to Daniel Greenfield in December: The Last Days of CNN.
CNN is far behind FOX News and MSNBC in the ratings. It averages around half a million viewers in prime time and it recently hit a 7-year low in the demo.
So it was the perfect time for Chris Wallace to leave FOX News for CNN+.
Some might have thought that Wallace was leaving to fill Chris Cuomo’s slot at CNN. No such luck, though without Cuomo the failing news network’s ratings have crashed to new lows.
But crashing to new lows is the default story at CNN.
CNN Airport, its captive audience operation, shut down earlier this year. And CNN isn’t far behind. CNN+ is the network’s bet that enough people will pay 6 bucks a month to watch it.
CNN’s effort to launch CNN+, a paid streaming service, at a time when its core ratings are crashing is confusing observers who wonder why the news network thinks people will pay for CNN when they won’t even watch it for free.
CNN President Jeff Zucker billed CNN+ as being for “CNN superfans, news junkies and fans of quality non-fiction programming.”
The existence of CNN superfans is as improbable as Bigfoot and UFOs. No one has ever spotted a CNN superfan in the wild and not even the most exotic zoos have them in stock.
I hope the Zuckerbucks — and all that came with it — were worth it for Wallace to jump ship.