CNN Is Becoming Walton's Mountain
By Allison Romano -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/19/2003 7:00:00 PM
For the last decade, CNN's top executives have been seasoned, serious journalists. Two came from print and the other from a broadcast network. Journalism, rather than business, was written all over their résumés.
Here comes number four, but this time there's a difference. Jim Walton (pictured at right), the newly appointed president of CNN News Group, is a 22-year news veteran who is coming from CNN, for a change. Unlike his predecessors, he has strong business and operations experience.
If CNN's previous heads, from outgoing CEO Walter Isaacson to former chiefs Tom Johnson and Rick Kaplan, were like front men for a rock band, Walton, most recently president and COO for domestic networks, would have been their manager, checking the box office receipts.
"I understand ratings, I understand advertising, I understand journalism," Walton said last week, one day after being anointed the new chief. "CNN means something to people and we have to deliver on that brand."
Walton has a journalism background—mostly in sports—but is highly regarded for his business acumen. The exiting Isaacson, a print vet who was a managing editor of Time magazine and high-ranking Time Inc. executive, will depart CNN in May to head The Aspen Institute, a think tank that one news executive called the place journalists go to retire. The change may be a welcome one after 18 frenzied months watching cable's first news channel fall behind upstart Fox News.
In picking his successor to run CNN's dizzying array of domestic and international outlets, Turner Broadcasting Chairman Jamie Kellner opted for an insider.
After being smacked with word of Isaacson's departure, insiders and veterans say Walton's appointment has had a calming effect. "The last thing they wanted to do was bring someone in from the outside," said one. "If an organization could have a breakdown, that would have caused it."
Aches and pains
Walton is the first CNN lifer to reach the top rung, having started with the network as a video producer.
Now, all of Isaacson's headaches—the brutal ratings war with Fox, managing finicky talent, prepping for a war in Iraq—are Walton's pains now.
Walton had never been clearly identified as the heir apparent at CNN. Surely, he'd been part of the inner circle and rising in recent years, particularly since the AOL Time Warner merger. But outwardly, Isaacson leaned on other CNN execs, like Executive Editor Sid Bedingfield, President of CNN International Eason Jordan and Teya Ryan, executive vice president for CNN/U.S.
Walton is more of a behind-the-scenes player. He has strong backing from Kellner, himself an entertainment veteran and a news neophyte still learning to navigate the business.
That support is something new for CNN, which has ousted numerous senior execs in the last decade. CNN was battered with hundreds of layoffs in the wake of the AOL Time Warner merger, and the network's mating dance with ABC News has staffers jittery again.
But Kellner's selection did raise some eyebrows. His first CNN chief Isaacson was a seasoned journalist, but a television novice. But Walton has a résumé that is chock full of television, but he's best known as a "sports guy," said one former news exec.
Walton once headed CNN's failed sports network CNN/SI, and won an Emmy for his coverage of the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. But he hasn't covered wars or been on the campaign trail—and that has been CNN's bread and butter.
But supporters—and there are many—say that's a narrow view. "Many great journalists start on the sports side," said Reese Schonfeld, a CNN founder and former president. "Jim understands what news on cable is."
And a big part of that means waging war with the feisty, top-rated Fox News Channel. Isaacson's strategy of recruiting broadcast veterans like Connie Chung and Paula Zahn to anchor shows housed in flashy new studios and replacing rolling newscasts with what he called appointment television met with mixed success. CNN's ratings have increased, but Fox News' lead keeps growing.
"Fox has helped us by challenging us to do better," Isaacson reflected last week, calling CNN a "real reported network."
Don't expect too much change at CNN under Walton's guidance.
"If it were just about ratings, maybe we'd have different programming on the air," he said. "The ratings would shoot up, but that would devalue the brand."
Walton said he will move forward with plans to add more live weekend shows on CNN, as well as more programming and new anchors to CNN Headline News.
The consistency he promises is what many at the news network are craving.
Staying in Atlanta
Walton's promotion also may finally stem concerns that CNN's power base was shifting from Atlanta, where the bulk of its 4,000 employees are based, to New York, home to its star anchors Chung, Zahn and Aaron Brown. Isaacson commuted, grudgingly some said, between Atlanta and his family in the New York City suburbs. Walton, who lives in Atlanta with his wife and two sons, said, "Atlanta remains the center. There is so much more to CNN than CNN/U.S."
But Walton defers to his boss Kellner, on the subject of partnering with ABC News. Kellner said last week that discussions had been shelved for six weeks while the company analyzes the merger prospects.
Walton preaches the same journalistic ethics that Isaacson did, throwing out phrases like "good journalism" and "accurate and fair reporting" to describe CNN in his battle with Fox News, with the suggestion that Fox has none of that. His years at CNN may have him better suited for the battle than Isaacson. At times since his July 2001 arrival, Isaacson was said to have been restless, and last week, Isaacson himself admitted that he was not a "natural born TV executive."
"I loved the journalism of CNN, but it took me a while to get into the TV-management part," he said.
The Aspen Institute, he said, offered him opportunities to write and be active in public policy. But if the position hadn't come along, Isaacson contended, "I would be perfectly happy chugging away [at CNN]."
As for Walton, one of his first moves as chief actually embraces his sports roots. He's having foosball tables installed around the CNN Center in Atlanta to help staffers cope with stress.
| News by the Numbers | ||
|---|---|---|
| HH prime time ratings battle between CNN and Fox | ||
| Quarter | CNN | Fox News |
| Source: Nielsen Media Research |
||
| 2Q 2001 | 0.6 | 0.7 |
| 3Q 2001 | 1.2 | 1.1 |
| 4Q 2001 | 1.4 | 1.4 |
| 1Q 2002 | 0.9 | 1.2 |
| 2Q 2002 | 0.8 | 1.1 |
| 3Q 2002 | 0.8 | 1.1 |
| 4Q 2002 | 0.9 | 1.3 |
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