New CNN CEO Mark Thompson is poised to slash the more than $50 million in anchor salaries as he starts to transform the cable network into a digital-first platform that more resembles what he did at the BBC, The Wrap reported Thursday.
Funding that effort, a "revolution," Thompson said last month, will start with remaking salaries of CNN's biggest name anchors, according to the report. The Wrap reported some of the salaries that are an albatross for the network:
- Anderson Cooper: $20 million per year
- Wolf Blitzer: $15 million
- Jake Tapper: $8.5 million
- Chris Wallace: $8 million
- John Berman, Kate Bolduan, Sara Sidner: $1 million to $2 million each.
"The first thing they need to do is dramatically reduce costs," industry analyst Rich Greenfield told The Wrap. "If you work at CNN your compensation is going to go down dramatically over the next … five years, there's just no other way around it."
"It's not like CNN will lose their talent, there's nowhere to go that would pay that much," Greenfield added.
Rachel Maddow makes $30 million per year at MSNBC but she's the outlier, according to the report, as all the other anchors there make less than their counterparts at CNN.
Compounding CNN's exorbitant costs is its lagging ratings behind chief competitors Fox News and MSNBC. CNN's total prime-time viewership in January trailed its competitors but also the History Channel and cable network INSP, which are Western TV shows, according to The Wrap.
In a memo to the staff last month, Thompson cited "production costs that now look difficult to support given the changing economics across our industry." He also said "it's time for a new revolution."
"We must abandon our preconceptions of the limits of what CNN can be and follow the audience to where they are now and where they will be in the years to come," Thompson wrote. "We will still stand for the same things — video-led breaking news, delivered as it happens with honesty and insight — but with greater flexibility about the how and multiple new forms of monetization to complement existing revenues."
That digital-led transformation is akin to what Thompson crafted previously at the BBC and The New York Times, according to the report.
Thompson was named CEO at CNN in August and officially started Oct. 9.