CNN Shakes Up the Top

CNN, unable to come up with a fix for its dropping ratings amid intensified cable news competition, is instead turning its focus to the digital world, expanded forms of distribution and better marketing.

The cable news network, whose parent, Time Warner Inc., is preparing for a proposed merger with America Online Inc., announced a major management reorganization on Wednesday that includes the departure of Richard Kaplan, president of CNN USA, and the promotion of several top executives.

Tellingly, according to some CNN executives, no one was named permanently to take over Kaplan’s key duties overseeing CNN’s domestic cable programming.

Meanwhile, CNN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tom Johnson, a former publisher of the Los Angeles Times, denied reports that he plans to retire at the end of the year. Terence McGuirk, chairman and chief executive officer of Turner Broadcasting System, CNN’s immediate corporate parent, said, “You will see him in that role for many years to come.”

Still, Johnson will now share oversight of CNN with Steven Heyer, president and chief operating officer of TBS. Johnson will oversee editorial matters while executives will report to Heyer on business and operating issues.

After a summer-long period of introspection that included retreats with top executives to look at the news network’s strengths and weaknesses, management decided that “as we merge with AOL we have a huge opportunity for growth in the digital world,” said McGuirk, in an interview, referring to the explosion in new technology that delivers news, including live video, over the Internet, and headlines through cell phones and beepers. “We need to grow CNN in a new way so that the digital presence is integrated with the analog,” he said, starting with the assignment desk and its approach to how every story is covered.

The new members of the management team, McGuirk said, “are all on the younger side. They are Web-savvy and really get the digital future. They represent the kind of new leadership it will take to be highly successful in the news business going forward.”

Effective immediately, Philip Kent, president of TBS International and overseer of CNN’s international business expansion, takes the new position of president and chief operating officer of CNN News Group, which includes all of CNN’s various channels.

Eason Jordan, a longtime CNN editorial employee who had been president of news gathering and international networks, takes the new post of president of news gathering and chief news executive. Chris Cramer, president of CNN International, takes over Jordan’s international networks duties, including CNN’s Web sites outside the U.S.

Jim Walton, who had been president of the tiny CNN/Sports Illustrated network, becomes president, CNN Networks/USA.

Kaplan, whose ABC News background before joining CNN in 1997 was largely in creating live television, didn’t have online experience, McGuirk said, and the reorganization would have left him lower in the hierarchy. “We think the world of Rick,” he said, adding that Kaplan was offered other jobs within the company, but “Rick decided he would rather leave.”

Kaplan won praise for updating a CNN look that had become increasingly dowdy and hiring some top correspondents such as ABC’s Jeff Greenfield. But his stormy tenure included a highly promoted story that had to be retracted, and a run-in that led to the departure of top-rated “Moneyline” anchor Lou Dobbs.

Kaplan was hired to figure out how CNN could compete when it had no breaking news story; ratings, instead, dropped significantly during his three-year tenure as Fox News Channel, MSNBC and financial network CNBC intensified competition. During the recent political nominating conventions, CNN dominated among news networks, but still saw its ratings drop by one-fourth from four years ago and even was beaten by Fox News at a couple key moments.

Still, CNN executives went out of their way to praise Kaplan, who got a cheering send-off on an internal conference call to discuss the changes, said one participant.

Kaplan said in a statement, “The leadership of Turner Broadcasting has chosen to reorganize the network. They have offered me several opportunities about how I might contribute in the future. But I believe that it is best that I now move on.

“I believe that we have enhanced the quality of news coverage and improved the depth of reporting,” he continued. “I have the greatest respect for those who are about to undertake extraordinary challenges facing CNN and wish them only the best in the future.”

Of the persistent ratings difficulties CNN has had in recent years, McGuirk said, “This is going to be a better organizational structure to attack that problem,” but he didn’t offer specifics, other than to say that marketing efforts will be improved. “We have great faith in our journalists, but we have not always promoted as well as we should. Cross-platform analog to digital promotion is something that we can be much better at.”

Johnson cited a Wednesday interview with presidential candidate George W. Bush, broadcast simultaneously on CNN, its international network, its radio networks and video-streamed on its allpolitics.com Web site (https://www.cnn.com/allpolitics), as an example of how the network would think going forward. “There are tremendous opportunities to serve a changing world, as more and more people are getting their information off the Internet.”

However, the demand among viewers and users for such efforts is a big unknown. Despite the attention paid to the proliferation of online news options during the recent political conventions, viewers largely yawned, as most sites cited disappointing usage.

But Johnson said that’s because “we are in the pioneering stages right now. I am convinced there will be enormous audiences worldwide using these new platforms.” CNN, he said, has plans to be live on board new Boeing airplanes and has worldwide deals for providing content through cell phones, beepers and other emerging wireless devices.

“Just as Ted [Turner] and Terry [McGuirk] led in putting CNN up on the satellite in 1980, and in taking CNN around the world . . . we’re now leading the change rather than responding to it. This is what this is all about, creating a new organization putting responsibility in the hands of the next generation of leaders.”