Former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker is in talks to become president of CNN Worldwide, someone close to Zucker tells TVNewser. Zucker would replace Jim Walton, who announced last summer that he’d be leaving the company at the end of the year.
The news of the advanced stage of the talks was first reported by the Los Angeles Times‘ Joe Flint, and the New York Times‘ Brian Stelter.
Zucker began his career as a prodigy at NBC News. He became executive producer of “Today” at age 27, and would go on to oversee “NBC Nightly News” before taking over the network’s entertainment division, and eventually the whole place. He left in 2011 after Comcast completed its acquisition of NBC.
He would go on to serve as EP of syndicated talker “Katie,” but is leaving the show at the end of this year. In October, Flint laid out a number of reasons why Zucker would not make sense for CNN. The Powers That Be were apparently not that concerned.
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes–who is leading the search to find Walton’s successor — will be speaking at the Ignite media conference tomorrow afternoon. TVNewser will be there to report on what he says regarding the news.