There are growing fears of big job cuts at CNN after its president Jeff Zucker, told employees in head quaters, “We are going to do less and have to do it with less.”
Zucker made the comments, revealed by a Turner employee who asked not to be identified, during a call-in to a news meeting last week .
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently received a partial transcript of the call.
CNN and other operations of Turner Broadcasting, have nearly 13,000 full-time employees, about half of them in Atlanta.
Zucker’s call came after Turner CEO John Martin sent a memo to staff saying a more streamlined company would be in place by the start of next year and that employees would begin hearing more in coming weeks.
Zucker said, “We now have a sense of what Turner is expecting from CNN. I am working with the senior management team at CNN to figure out what this means for us. This will result in changes and what we do and what we stop doing.”
Zucker added in his call “We need to continue to protect what we’ve been doing so brilliantly for the last few months. We need to have the ability to do what we’ve been doing.
“On the other hand, we are faced with reality, we are going to have to do what we do with less. As a result, that means there will be changes.
“No final decisions have been made. I will be meeting with senior management of CNN. You will hear from your manager in the next week or so.
“We are just now moving into the next phase, I know this is on a lot of people’s mind.
“As difficult as this message is to share, I thought it was important to be transparent.”
The developments are seen as a follow-up of CNN losing its viewership to a historic low level and sources state that things are not going great in CNN ever since Zucker joining CNN in 2012.
