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Another billionaire has added a media company to his wishlist: John Catsimatidis, the chairman and CEO of grocery chains Gristedes Foods and D'Agostino Supermarkets. He’s recently been telling news outlets he’d be willing to purchase CNN from Warner Bros. Discovery.
“I’d go run the place tomorrow morning, and all I’d want is $1 per year and a piece of the upside,” the grocery mogul told the New York Post.
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Catsimatidis’s comments come at a difficult time for the media outlet, which has faced declining viewership and turnover in the C-suite in recent years. On Aug. 30, CNN brought in Mark Thompson, former chief executive of the BBC and The New York Times, to replace former network head Chris Licht, who was let go in June after a brief one-year stint. Licht’s exit came shortly after the highly scrutinized Donald Trump town hall broadcast that some of the company’s most lauded reporters roundly criticized.
If given the opportunity, Catsimatidis says he could run CNN better than it had been.
Catsimatidis has big plans for CNN
In an interview with Fox Business, the Catsimatidis said he believed he could quadruple CNN’s viewership rapidly.
“CNN only has, what, 400,000 viewers every night?” he said. “I told them … I’ll have it up to two million in one year."
Catsimatidis also indicated that he’d be willing to consider joint ventures to finance the deal and that he could “double the profits” relatively quickly if given control.
His strategy would include making the content more bipartisan in an effort to broaden viewership — though his lack of television media experience and highly partisan views raise some doubts.
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Who is John Catsimatidis?
Born in Greece and raised in New York, Catsimatidis is an entrepreneur and radio show host. Besides grocery stores, his holdings include a real estate firm, an aviation company, an oil refinery and the Hellenic Times newspaper.
He also hosts The Cats Roundtable radio show. His radio station, WABC-AM 770, is ranked 11th in New York City based on Neilsen’s data.