John Malone, the person who owns the most shares of Liberty Media, the company ready to take over CNN, said on Thursday that he would like to see the network “actually have journalists again.”
John Malone, the person who owns the most shares of Liberty Media, the company ready to take over CNN, said on Thursday that he would like to see the network "actually have journalists again."
"I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing," commented Malone in the interview with CNBC, mentioning that he believes that "good journalism could have a role in this future portfolio that Discovery-Time Warner’s going to represent."
The mainstream media news giant has come under fire quite a lot recently for having a blatant bias. In addition, its ratings have been plummeting in the recent past and continue on a downward spiral as people have been tuning out in droves.
"The coward's way out would be to sell it, or spin it off and then sell it", Malone continued.
The deal to combine Warner Media's media assets, currently owned by AT&T, is incredibly complex, and will likely take until the middle of the year 2022 before it is finalized. As such, final details could also change in the interim. But the main thrust of the deal would be an approximately $43 billion merger of Discovery and Warner Media, bringing them both under the same umbrella.
Malone, himself a leading pioneer first in the cable TV industry and now in digital media, also mentioned that the new company will heavily focus on streaming, with its immediate goal to be the number three streaming service worldwide, behind Netflix and Disney Plus.
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