Jeff Zucker

Zucker's decision to have Cuomo apologize on-air for giving advice to his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, instead of punishing him "tracked with CNN’s by now well-established policy of how to deal with the roiling, inherent conflict of the Cuomo brother dynamic — essentially by embracing it," explain The Washington Post's Sarah Ellison and Jeremy Barr. Cuomo, as they point out, leads CNN's No. 1 show. In fact, Cuomo Prime Time attracted more viewers in the coveted 25-to-54 demographic for the first three months of the year. Ellison and Barr report that Cuomo spent a day last week workshopping his apology, going through nearly 10 drafts before landing on a statement that cast himself as “family first, job second.” "The apology appeased some at CNN, who considered it heartfelt and unusual, given Cuomo’s typically aggressive style," report Ellison and Barr. "For others, 'it was a band-aid on a bullet hole,” as one on-air CNN personality called it.'" Meanwhile, during Tuesday's CNN town hall meeting, Zucker defended his decision not to suspend Cuomo. “I didn’t think taking him off the air for a week or two made any sense,” Zucker said. “It was more important to be honest and transparent. I’m not surprised Chris had conversations with his brother. Who wouldn’t? Where he screwed up was doing that in the presence of his brothers’ aides.” ALSO: The only reason Cuomo may be off the hook is because CNN is just as responsible for his infractions as he is.

CNN President Jeff Zucker on Tuesday reportedly told concerned staffers that anchor Chris Cuomo “is human” and that his on-air apology for personally advising his older brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was sufficient. According to multiple reports, during a town-hall meeting with staff, Mr. Zucker said he understood the...

CNN chief Jeff Zucker addressed his employees in a town hall meeting Tuesday, reports WSJ, and mentioned the news network’s streaming plans. He talked about the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger and confirmed that a standalone CNN streaming service is officially in the works. Though Zucker has shared few details so far, he...

Zucker said in a CNN town hall meeting today that he did tell the Cuomo Prime Time host he was wrong to advise his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in his sexual misconduct scandal. But ultimately, Zucker decided not to punish Cuomo, opting instead to have Cuomo personally apologize to viewers.

CNN President Jeff Zucker on Tuesday insisted that there are no “special rules” that apply to Chris Cuomo — even though the top anchor was not disciplined for advising his older brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on how to respond to sexual harassment allegations, according to reports. The network boss, in...

Jeff Zucker, chairman of news and sports at WarnerMedia, held a company town hall on Tuesday in which he addressed the recent Chris Cuomo-CNN controversy and answered questions regarding return-to-office plans. Zucker suggested CNN staffers who were vaccinated and wished to return to the outlet’s New York offices would likely...

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo made a "mistake" in participating in strategy calls with his brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and his staff, according to one of the cable news network's top executives. Jeff Zucker, chairman of CNN parent WarnerMedia's news division, told staffers he understood the "unease" over Cuomo’s actions, saying...

CNN boss Jeff Zucker on Tuesday addressed network staffers’ concerns over the revelations that primetime star host Chris Cuomo advised his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on how to respond to the multiple sexual harassment allegations against him. During a Tuesday afternoon town-hall meeting with staff, Zucker claimed he...

During a CNN town hall with staffers, the first since the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger was announced last week, WarnerMedia News and Sports chairman Jeff Zucker was asked why Cuomo Primetime anchor Chris Cuomo wasn’t disciplined for participating in strategy sessions with his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and his aides on how the governor should respond to allegations of sexual harassment.

Sources say Zucker held a virtual town hall meeting Tuesday with staffers Tuesday in which he called Chris Cuomo's strategy sessions with his embattled brother Gov. Andrew Cuomo a "mistake." TheWrap reports that the CNN president did not indicate whether Cuomo will face any kind of repercussions. Zucker also reportedly discussed the ouster of senior political commentator Rick Santorum, calling Santorum's recent comments about Native Americans "inappropriate and racist."

Barry Diller does not think highly of AT&T — not in the Time Warner acquisitions days, and not now amid a spinoff of its WarnerMedia into a merger with Discovery. “Ma Bell should have been dead and buried by now,” Diller said Friday morning on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”. Diller added...

CNN President Jeff Zucker, 56, hasn’t let two bouts of colon cancer or his other array of health issues slow him down while running America’s leading news organizations. Though the former NBCUniversal CEO recently announced he will likely be moving on from CNN by the end of the year as things recover from the “new normal,” his resilience has been truly remarkable from a health perspective.

Zucker's close relationship with his new boss, who will head up the combined new company, is notable because the CNN president clashed with his outgoing boss, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar, which appeared to be the primary reason Zucker said in February he was leaving CNN at the end of the year. "If the deal closes, Mr. Zaslav would oversee Mr. Zucker’s portfolio of CNN and Turner sports programming for the foreseeable future; he signed a contract with Discovery on Tuesday that would keep him with the company until 2027," reports The New York Times' Michael M. Grynbaum and John Koblin. "That has changed the calculus for Mr. Zucker, who had previously said he expected to leave CNN at the end of 2021 but now, according to friends, may be open to a longer stay. Mr. Zucker declined to comment, but Mr. Zaslav, in a telephone interview, did not dismiss the idea." Zaslav said of Zucker: “He’s a hugely talented guy, and we’ll see what he wants to do." Grynbaum and Koblin add: "In a staff memo on Monday, Mr. Zucker made no mention of his 30 years of friendship with Mr. Zaslav: their early years at NBC together, regular kibitz sessions on the phone, or weekend golf games in the Hamptons where their sprawling estates sit a 10-minute drive apart. (Mr. Zucker is inland; Mr. Zaslav has the oceanfront view.) Nor did he point out that Mr. Zaslav’s daughter is a producer in CNN’s Washington bureau. But his excitement was obvious. 'This is big and exciting news for our company,' Mr. Zucker wrote. 'And, I think it’s fair to say, really good news for us.' People who have spoken with the CNN president in recent days report his mood on the telephone as buoyant. His confidants, who requested anonymity to describe private conversations, said that Mr. Zucker had learned of the impending merger only shortly before the public announcement, and that he was still determining his options." ALSO: Jeff Zucker is poised for a comeback, possibly as global chairman of news and sports or chief content officer of the new venture.

Jeff Zucker spent last year in a box. Heading into 2020, the CNN president was considered the top internal candidate to take over as chief executive of AT&T's WarnerMedia, according to several company insiders. It would be a major promotion to the top of one of the biggest media companies in the business, overseeing a portfolio that included Warner Bros., HBO and Turner, as well as the cable news channel he had stewarded.

Friends tell me Jeff Zucker may drop his plan to depart at year's end and instead remain head of CNN, as a result of the massive merger of AT&T-Discovery media assets announced Monday morning. Driving the news: I'm told that nothing has been decided. But absent this tectonic media shift,...

David Zaslav — the always-working, fleece-wearing chief executive officer of Discovery — is expected to run the new media conglomerate he’s forming with AT&T with a little help from his friends. And that could lead to some of the top media executives who failed to thrive under telecom giant AT&T...

One of the many question in the wake of Monday’s blockbuster announcement of WarnerMedia’s merger with Discovery is the status of longtime CNN headJeff Zucker, who had announced in January that he planned to step down when his contract expires at the end of 2021. But Zucker “may drop” that...