Mark Thompson Will Keep Running CNN After Ellison's Skydance Takes Over

His staff memo promises an independent CNN, while Bari Weiss separately runs CBS News under the same new owner.

Mark Thompson will keep running CNN once David Ellison's Skydance finishes buying Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, Oct. 6, Deadline reported Monday.

That gives the merged company, which will go by the name Skydance, two national TV news operations with two separate bosses. Thompson runs CNN, and Bari Weiss runs CBS News, the newsroom Ellison's Paramount already owned. Ellison and his co-CEO, Ynon Kreiz, put both names on the leadership list they released Monday, TheWrap reported.

Thompson, who came to CNN in 2023, told his own staff first, in a memo Deadline published in full. His title on the new chart is chairman and editor-in-chief of CNN, and he wrote that he'd lead the network with the same responsibilities and prerogatives he holds today. That settles who'll run CNN now that it shares an owner with CBS News.

The pitch to the newsroom was independence. After long conversations with the new owners, Thompson wrote, he has "real confidence" they'll "fully support the principle and practice of the kind of independent news that CNN has always stood for." He added that everyone from Ellison down ranks news next to entertainment among the new company's biggest strategic bets, and likes CNN's digital plan.

The plumbing is another matter. Exactly how CNN will fit inside Skydance and operate there hasn't been settled, Thompson acknowledged, because serious talks couldn't begin until Paramount's antitrust settlement a few days before the memo. He told staff he couldn't answer every question yet.

Keeping Thompson matches how Ellison handled the company's other best-known brands. HBO's Casey Bloys stays on as chief content officer of Skydance's direct-to-consumer streaming business, George Cheeks becomes chief content officer of Skydance TV, and James Gunn and Peter Safran keep running DC Studios together, TheWrap reported.

The movie studio is where the chart changed hands. The Globe reported on Oct. 3 that Warner Bros.' movie chiefs were being pushed out. On Monday's list, Skydance Motion Picture Group goes to Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, according to TheWrap.

Ellison's own statement on the lineup called the merged company "a creative-first home," and it didn't single out news. Thompson's memo did that work for CNN, telling staffers the new owners bring values to the job as well as vision and energy.

He didn't pretend the building was calm. Plenty of CNN staffers have been uneasy about the sale, Thompson conceded, and that's understandable, since he'd "had the odd moment or two myself!" On Tuesday, they'll watch the company launch along with everybody else, with a boss who now has to prove that his promises survive the org chart.

Source: Deadline, retrieved October 5, 2026. Other sources: TheWrap.