Good evening, I'm Dylan Byers.

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Dylan

The Chris Wallace Tea Leaves

Is Zucker’s poaching of Chris Wallace a harbinger of CNN+’s centrism and maturity, or a trophy hire to buy time for a new streamer. Or (hint!) both, and then some?

If you're a regular reader of this column, you know I've assigned a possibly irrational level of importance to John Malone's recent musings about the future of CNN. The media mogul called on the network to dial back its opinion programming, “actually have journalists'” and “evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with”—itself a critique that I find notable in light of Malone's impending influence as a board director at CNN's future parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. I thought I had spilled all the ink there was to spill on those remarks—Malone is neither C.E.O. of Warner Bros. Discovery, nor president of CNN, and he’ll be one board member among thirteen—and yet I found myself thinking of those words once again when I heard that the distinguished newsman Chris Wallace was leaving Fox News to join CNN's new streaming service, CNN+.

I don’t want to read too far into Wallace’s move. Like others who have decamped from Fox recently, he had become alarmed and discouraged by the network's tolerance for falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and culture war provocation, and didn’t have enough sway to do much about it. (A plea from Wallace, Bret Baier, and others to Fox News leadership over Tucker Carlson’s incendiary “Patriot Purge” documentary appears to have fallen on deaf ears.) In an industry dominated by five news networks—Fox, CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS—there are only so many places that a 74-year-old fourth-place Sunday show host can go besides retirement. By the same token, there are only so many camera-ready anchors that a cable news chief like Jeff Zucker can hire. In other words, I wouldn't go looking for evidence of some grand CNN+ strategy here. Wallace needed a home; CNN always needs talent.

Nevertheless, the upshot of the deal is that CNN's first big, headline-grabbing get for its new streaming service is exactly the kind of person that a stakeholder like John Malone would want to see at CNN. As one D.C. media executive said to me, Wallace's hire “pulls CNN closer to the functioning political center, which is narrower but vacant,” and gives CNN+ “an opportunity to create value for millions of politically homeless people'” who resent the partisan and opinionated programming that dominates so much of cable news. As one Hollywood executive put it, the Wallace move also suggests CNN+ will be more “Charlie Rose” than “Vice.” (So far, CNN+ has announced three other shows: a news show anchored by NBC News alum Kasie Hunt, which very much plays into the straight news strategy; a business show hosted by the very outspoken entrepreneur and Kara Swisher wingman Scott Galloway; and Searching for Mexico with Eva Longoria, a Bourdain-style miniseries that follows in the footsteps of Stanley Tucci’s successful Searching for Italy.)

CNN’s ability to create value for the politically homeless in streaming only exists, however, if the network can convince people to cough up $5 to $8 a month for CNN+. Despite his bona fides, Wallace is hardly a marquee player or ratings magnet. On Sundays, from a ratings perspective, he was the fourth horse in a four-horse race. “I mean I like Chris Wallace, but I’m not paying a monthly service fee,” Howard Stern said on his radio show this week, likely channeling the attitudes of the vast majority of Americans. Stern also pointed out that “people don’t watch CNN,” so “who the hell is going to pay for CNN+?” Hiring a 74-year-old Fox News veteran doesn't really answer that question, nor does it signal a grand strategy for the future of news in streaming, much less what the next generation of talent looks like...

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