Don Lemon
CNN on Monday fired veteran host and anchor Don Lemon, he said, in a surprise move announced only minutes after Fox News parted ways with its star host, Tucker Carlson, reports the Washington Post.
Lemon announced his departure from CNN in a tweet. “I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN,” he wrote. “I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It is clear that there are some larger issues at work.”
Lemon didn’t spell out what “larger issues” may have been involved, but the longtime host was chastised in February for on-air comments about the “prime” age of Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and other women.
CNN released a statement disputing Lemon’s characterization of what took place Monday morning, calling it “inaccurate.”
“He was offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter,” CNN’s communications team tweeted.
Nevertheless, his firing was as unexpected as that of Carlson’s departure from Fox, which Fox disclosed Monday morning in a news release. Both men were key on-air personalities at their respective networks. .
Lemon also appeared to be a key building block in CNN’s efforts to revive its flagging ratings and rebuild under its new chief executive, Chris Licht and new owner Warner Bros. Discovery, after WarnerMedia merged with Discovery last April. Last year, Lemon left the prime time program he had hosted since 2014, “Don Lemon Tonight,” at Licht’s behest to co-anchor CNN’s newly retooled morning program, “CNN This Morning.”
It was one of the biggest programmatic moves up until that point for Licht, who had a hand in creating and shaping several major morning shows, such as “CBS Mornings” and “Morning Joe” at MSNBC.
While morning shows represent valuable airtime — due in part to the advertising dollars they command — CNN regularly ranked toward the bottom behind its competitors in ratings, even before the new program debuted.
The new program also got off to a slow start among viewers. In February — just a few months after it debuted — it averaged 360,000 total viewers, compared with 895,000 for “Morning Joe” and 1.2 million for “Fox & Friends” on Fox News, according to Nielsen data.
Lemon co-hosted the program alongside Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins, and he became a magnet for criticism, particularly after a February a segment discussing Haley’s call for competency tests for politicians older than 75.
