Chris Wallace is coming to primetime, as CNN CEO Chris Licht previews his vision for the future of the news channel.
The former Fox News Sunday moderator, who hosted the interview show called Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace on CNN+ for its brief run, will shift to CNN’s linear network this fall, where he will host it in primetime on Sunday nights. It will also stream on HBO Max. Wallace’s show will be part of a new “CNN Sunday” programming block, which will also include a longform journalism series.
Wallace’s show was announced at the Warner Bros. Discovery upfront Wednesday morning by Licht, who also announced some other changes coming to CNN.
For starters, Licht said that CNN will “reimagine” CNN’s morning show, leveraging the network’s journalists and correspondents.
“We are seeking to be a disrupter to the broadcast morning shows in this space, and we believe we have the resources to do it,” Licht said. Licht, of course, served as executive producer of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and of CBS This Morning.
Licht said that with “extremes” dominating cable news, “we will seek to go a different way.”
“Truth, fact and news that has real impact in their [viewers] lives is how we plan CNN’s future,” he said.
Wallace left Fox at the end of the year, saying he wanted a new challenge that went broader than politics. He landed at CNN+, where he interviewed guests like Bob Iger and Jen Psaki in a longform interview format. Of course, CNN+ was shuttered less than a month after it launched, with Warner Bros. Discovery instead shifting CNN’s digital strategy in a new direction.
