CNN president Jeff Zucker won’t leave the company at the end of the year

The president of CNN will not be leaving WarnerMedia at the end of the year.

Jeff Zucker, 55, who was poised to leave at the end of 2021, will remain with the company at least until the $43 billion AT&T and Discovery merger deal concludes sometime next year, according to people familiar with the matter.

Zucker had previously stated in May that he would leave at the end of the year, when his contract was set to expire. 

‘At that point, I do expect to move on,’ Zucker had said. 

CNN President Jeff Zucker said he will stay on despite repeatedly stating that he would leave at the end of the year. He is pictured with host Anderson Cooper

Discovery CEO David Zaslav, left, said on Monday that the new streaming service will prioritize news, like CNN. CNN President Jeff Zucker was due to leave at the end of the year but Zaslav had said : ‘We will be trying to figure out how do we get the best and brightest to stay’.

Discovery’s TV brands that will also be housed under the new company when the deal is complete next year 

He cannot legally discuss his position with the company until the merger’s completion, NBC reports. 

Discovery CEO David Zaslav had stated that he wanted to keep Zucker on board to make sure the merger succeeded during a press conference in May. 

‘We will be trying to figure out how do we get the best and brightest to stay,’ Zaslav had said. 

The deal would create a separate media company housing all of the Warner and Discovery networks. Warner’s CNN is part of the deal, along with HBO Max, TLC and TNT.

The deal aims to create a behemoth that has the horsepower to take on Netflix and Disney in the streaming service race, combining a stable of news and entertainment shows. 

Zaslav added that Discover will spend $20 billion investing in content in the first year about $3 billion more than Netflix did in 2020.

Zucker has led CNN since 2013 and was one of the few executives to say with WarnerMedia after a merger between AT&T and Time Warner in 2018. 

His decision comes amid rumors of a rift with his new boss, CEO of parent company WarnerMedia Jason Kilar, right, and the end of the Trump presidency

It was Zucker who in 2004 aired The Apprentice, making Trump a household name

His decision to leave, first reported by The New York Times, came amid rumors of a rift with his new boss, CEO of parent company WarnerMedia Jason Kilar over the direction of the network in the wake of the end of the Trump presidency.

Zucker had initially courted the former president, telling his disgraced attorney Michael Cohen in March 2016 that he could offer Trump a weekly show on CNN.

But he later turned on the Republican and thought he had given too much exposure to his campaign events with the network’s left leaning coverage leading to calls of ‘fake news’ from Trump and his supporters.

Kilar had already stripped him of his role in overseeing human resources and the public relations team.

Despite that, the new chief exec had said in December that ‘the two best things that ever happened to CNN were Ted Turner and Jeff Zucker’.

Zucker started his career as a researcher for the 1988 Olympics for NBC before becoming executive producer of the Today show aged just 26.

He then became president of NBC Entertainment; it was Zucker who in 2004 aired The Apprentice, making Trump a household name.

After replacing and then reinstating Jay Leno, Zucker lost his job with the network and he joined CNN in 2013.

Since then it has enjoyed high ratings, hitting a 40-year network record in November and beating competitors with their coverage of the Capitol siege.

Zucker later said he had given too much exposure to his campaign events.

And he was heard in calls referring to Rudy Giuliani as a ‘useful idiot’ and calling Trump ‘s legal team ‘crazy’ during a staff meeting.

The former president repeatedly called the network ‘fake news’ and it was accused of harboring a liberal and anti-Trump bias.

Sources have said CNN’s later coverage of Trump was Zucker’s attempt to kill his ‘runaway monster’.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk