CNN's biggest star makes eye-catching decision that hints at news channel's huge troubles

Daily Mail​

17-06-2025

Anderson Cooper has suddenly switched talent agencies in a sign he may soon be seeking other opportunities.
The CNN star had been with United Talent Agency (UTA) for more than a decade before jumping ship to Creative Artists Agency (CAA), sources told Semafor, The Wrap, and Variety this week.
It comes as CNN's parent, Warner Bros Discovery, announced plans to split into two separate companies just a few days earlier.
The move will see CNN lead one of the new ventures centered around languishing linear TV.
Cooper, 58, has been with CNN since 2001 and collects $18million-a-year, a Puck piece published last week pointed out.
The same piece saw CNN alum Dylan Byers predict such salaries would be scrubbed, as cable markets wane and the boss of the new firm - former WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels - seems content to commence cost-cutting.
Reports surrounding Cooper's representation shakeup came shortly thereafter. Four people familiar with the matter told Variety the switch to CAA is being treated as 'a possible sign' Cooper is 'looking to explore other opportunities'.
He will be represented by CAA CEO Bryan Lourd directly, the publications reported.
DailyMail.com has reached out to CAA for comment.
The CNN mainstay previously was with N.S. Bienstock before it was bought out by UTA in 2014.
The move saw figures like Robin Roberts, Bill O'Reilly and Cooper move to UTA, which represents on-air talent like MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell and ABC News' David Muir
Ryan Seacrest and Cooper's CNN colleague Jake Tapper also call themselves UTA clients. The firm writes on its website that its news division 'sets the standard for journalist representation' in the field.
CAA, by contrast, is more rooted in Hollywood.
Lourd - one of the most well-known agents in the industry - has represented the likes of Scarlett Johansson, Brad Pitt, and George Clooney.
Cooper recently sat down with Clooney to promote the CNN-televised play Good Night and Good Luck.
The appointment of WBD's old chief financial officer to oversee the new debt-laden company is also telling, Puck's Byers reported.
'Of course, by the time Gunnar gets around to it, Anderson will likely have determined that he no longer wants to read the day's news to less than a million people every night, either,' he wrote last week.
Tapper, 56, remains locked in a 'low-eight-figure multiyear deal', the report further revealed. He is set to stay on the air as a result, said Byers - without offering a timeline.
As for Cooper - who for more than 20 years has hosted Anderson Cooper 360 - the case is less cut-and-dry.
His last publicly-disclosed contract extension came and went in 2016, when CNN signed him to an unspecified long-term deal that was said to last for as long as five years.
Since then, ratings at CNN have fallen to an all-time low, and the economics of TV news has become much more shaky.
Under Thompson's two-year tenure, CNN 's ratings have dropped more than 20 percent - now behind even MSNBC.
The network, for years, was the top dog in terms of cable news - a distinction is now held by Fox, which in contrast to news-gathering CNN, runs on a relatively inexpensive model fueled by studio programs.
CNN also has several foreign bureaus and employs costly correspondents spends large amounts on newsgathering alone - leaving execs to cut costs in other ways.
Prior to announcing the split, CEO David Zaslav and Wiedenfels hadmanaged to reduce Warner Bros Discovery's $55billion debt by some $21 billion in that same timeframe.
Zaslav and Wiedenfels' cost-cutting campaign has done little to help the conglomerate's share price, however, which is down 7 percent year to date.
'[O]nce seem[ing] only slightly ridiculous... Now they seem appalling,' Byers wrote of Cooper and Tapper's 'eight-figure' salaries.
In addition to '360', Cooper also hosts New Year's Eve on CNN alongside Bravo host Andy Cohen, and is a senior correspondent for CBS's 60 Minutes.
He also guest-hosted the game show 'Jeopardy', and was considered as a potential co-host for Kelly Ripa on ABC's 'Live.'