Yes he is.
The next time a prominent broadcaster reveals they’re leaving their job for some sort of “new adventure” they promise to tell you more about soon, it would be reasonable to assume they’re headed to CNN+, a forthcoming direct-to-consumer service from the network that kicked off the cable news revolution more than 40 years ago. That’s how it went down when Kasie Hunt left NBC News and MSNBC in July, when Chris Wallace left Fox News in December, and when Audie Cornish left NPR last week, making her the latest arrival at CNN’s streaming soirée. “This is not CNN 2,” as executives have put it, which is to say they view it as something much more ambitious.
The project has been in development for around a year and a half at least; I first reported in August 2020 that parent company WarnerMedia was developing a “global direct-to-consumer offering,” with one source remarking, “The trick is to create a new product, with all the foundations and brand prestige of CNN, that people would be interested in paying money for.” Now CNN is in the midst of a full-court P.R. blitz ahead of a planned debut this spring, with a rapid clip of press releases heralding talent and programming. The latest additions are new weekday shows from CNN anchor Kate Bolduan and national correspondent Sara Sidner, as well as a daily offering hosted live from the field by a rotating cast of domestic and international correspondents. Programs like these, as well as those from Wallace, Hunt, Anderson Cooper, and Scott Galloway, will make up the news-driven, 8-to-12-hour live programming block that CNN+ promises at launch. Others, including new shows from the likes of Eva Longoria and Alison Roman, not to mention the Stanley Tucci and Anthony Bourdain libraries, will be offered on demand, reflecting the documentary-driven approach that has become a bigger part of CNN’s identity in recent years. CNN also announced this week that CNN+ will premiere The Last Movie Stars, Ethan Hawke’s six-part, Scorsese-produced film about Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. It’s the latest get by top CNN executive Amy Entelis. She’s expected to substantially increase the number of films and series that are developed and acquired by her team, which will have a home at CNN+ even if they premiere on the main network. Additionally, CNN+ will have an interactive component, which was described to me as a way of “building community into the service.” If you were to speculate about what that might look like, picture, say, Sanjay Gupta interviewing Anthony Fauci in front of a virtual audience of CNN+ subscribers, almost like a video version of Clubhouse.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/01/this-is-not-cnn-2-inside-the-cable-news-giants-streaming-dreams
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