CNN is Dead, Long Live CNN…

The New York Times’ Brian Stelter moves the needle on the replacement for Jim Walton story…

Several news executives close to Mr. Zucker said this week that they believed he had been chosen to run CNN, and they expected the appointment to be announced soon. People close to the Time Warner chief executive, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, also identified Mr. Zucker. A Time Warner spokesman declined to comment.

Stelter then offers up this…

In considering candidates to run one of the world’s best-known, but beleaguered, news organizations, Mr. Bewkes and his deputy Phil Kent have also been considering their own legacies. They are cautious about not undermining CNN’s journalistic heart and soul, even as they strive to resuscitate the channel’s prime-time lineup, according to people who have met with them about the search. That means the channel’s programming will remain nonpartisan in nature.

“They want someone who has programming and management and cable expertise; someone who can be credible to the staff and to the business community,” one person said. “They know that this is a pretty tall order.”

Well, then why Zucker? Stelter then makes an argument…

Mr. Zucker could check off all those boxes. As a young NBC News producer, he helped start what became a 16-year winning streak for the “Today” show. He had mixed results as he moved up the rungs of NBC, but he can point to cable programming successes even as the NBC broadcast network struggled.

The problem I have with this line of reasoning, as I’ve mentioned before, is that Zucker’s cable news track record shows a history of brand dilution in order to boost ratings with a “whatever gets eyeballs” approach. For MSNBC that meant gutting news almost completely and airing non-sequitur crime docs. For The Weather Channel it meant more reality TV and movies. CNBC lost its primetime identity of live programming in favor of boring tape.

For Zucker to succeed at CNN and keep CNN true to its roots and not succumb to “undermining CNN’s journalistic heart and soul” it means Zucker would have to adapt himself to the CNN legacy and not do what he did to NBCU’s cable news properties. Can he do that? Sure. Will he do that? I’m highly skeptical. Until I see it actually happen…until I see Zucker build on CNN’s strengths without destroying its news brand, I will continue to believe that a Zucker led CNN Worldwide could very well mean the death of the network as it has been known for 30 plus years. For CNN’s sake I hope I’m wrong…