Former Fox News host Chris Wallace is reportedly suffering “daily breakdowns” at his new job at CNN’s failed streaming service.
Wallace is so unhappy with his new job that he’s “threatening to walk” unless he’s given his own show on CNN’s main network, accoridng to reports.
The host’s outrage was reported by veteran journalist Jon Nicosia, President of News Cycle Media.
Nicosia has been revealing the inside story behind the CNN+ streaming debacle and now he has a scoop about Wallace.
He is now reporting that sources from CNN are leaking information on the current state of Wallace’s failing career:
“SOURCE: Chris Wallace is ‘having daily breakdowns’ over the ‘miserable launch’ of @CNNplus.
“Wants a ‘CNN show or is threatening to walk’ they go on. ‘He is having staffers count how many times a day his promo is playing’.”
Chris Wallace left Fox News for what he thought well-funded new streaming service from CNN backed by the top brass, mainly disgraced former boss Jeff Zucker.
However, the launch of the streaming service has been a disaster with less than 10,000 daily viewers.
And the new bosses at CNN have had enough.
According to a new report from Axios, they will make dramatic cuts in investment and projections for the new streaming service as they try to figure out what to do with the flop.
CNN was planning to drop around $1 billion to get the streaming service up and running.
Now they will only spend a fraction of that which means cuts across the board and not as many perks for the stars like Wallace.
Axios reports:
“Investment and projections for CNN+ are expected to be cut dramatically in response to a low adoption rate, two sources tell Axios.
“By the numbers: The news giant was initially planning to invest around $1 billion in the service over the next four years.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to be cut from that original investment total. To date, around $300 million has been spent on the subscription service.”
Fox Business News’ Charles Gasparino reported earlier that the streaming service was in big trouble.
Gasparino said: “Breaking: @CNNplus employees bracing for layoffs possibly as soon as May amid projections of lackluster sales of new streaming channel; CNN employees say new streaming channel could be merged into larger @discoveryplus as early as May unless subscriptions pick up.”
CNN’s rep Matt Dornic said of Gasparino’s report: “For the record, we are VERY happy with the launch of CNN+ and are only bracing for a long run of success.
Gasparino responded: “The ‘well oiled’ @CNN PR Flack department won’t respond to my calls for comment but tweets out their response. Nice.”
Gasparino clearly has inside information because he also reported:
“Very awkward moment Monday night during @CNNplus launch party at the swanky Peak restaurant. @morsea gives speech thanking Jeff Zucker, Allison Gollust for creating the new product.
“Without missing a beat he thanks the dude who fired them @jasonkilar. Crowd stood is shock.”
SOURCE: Chris Wallace is “having daily breakdowns” over the “miserable launch” of @CNNplus. Wants a “CNN show or is threatening to walk” they go on. “He is having staffers count how many times a day his promo is playing”
— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) April 12, 2022
For the record, we are VERY happy with the launch of CNN+ and are only bracing for a long run of success.
— Matt Dornic (@mdornic) March 30, 2022
