Almost a year after CNN parted ways with Don Lemon, the network has agreed to pay the host a whopping $24.5 Million.
The Wrap reported that CNN will pay Lemon the huge amount surrounding his ouster from the network.
According to unnamed sources, this is the sum Lemon would have received had he completed the remaining three and a half years at CNN.
Lemon was removed from his primetime show to co-host “CNN This Morning” alongside Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow last year after he said Republican candidate Nikki Haley “isn’t in her prime, sorry.”
Just days later, Lemon was dismissed by CNN.
He contended:
“I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly.”
In a letter interview, Lemon said:
“[CNN] did not want me to be a part of [their plans for the network], and I think that has, from what has played out publicly as it relates to CNN, as it relates to management, and what they’re doing now, I think that it’s obvious that they didn’t want me to be a part of that.”
Aside from his huge settlement, Lemon is also set to debut his own show — “The Don Lemon Show” — on the social media platform X in a few weeks.
Overall, this is bad news for CNN.
Over the last few years, CNN has suffered as it struggles to remain irrelevant to the average American.
As The Western Journal highlighted:
CNN’s top talent has faced severe salary cuts as their exorbitant salaries became much less justifiable as networks like Fox, MSNBC, and even Jim and Tammy Bakker’s INSP network routinely trounce CNN in the ratings.
Even hiring basketball star Charles Barkley to host a primetime show with Gayle King has been a ratings flop, being outperformed by reruns of “South Park” and “Seinfeld,” and in January of 2024, significant financial losses forced CNN to close their Philippine’s branch after 9 years.
In September last year, CNN recorded its worst weekend ratings on record.
The Daily Fetched reported:
The network, which launched in 1980, billing itself as “the most trusted name in the news,” totaled a meager 55,000 viewers for its weekend shows that include Sunday political programs “State of the Union with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash” and “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”
The embattled network’s Sunday primetime lineup featuring “The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper” and “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy” drew 43,000 in the demographic.
CNN’s ratings are officially the worst since 1991, when TV data became readily available.
Before 1991, the data was largely not digitized.
However, the network’s overall viewership wasn’t much better.
CNN logged just 345,000 total viewers as it trailed behind Fox News’ 683,000 and MSNBC’s 424,000.
READ: CNN’s 2024 Electoral Map Shows Good News for Trump, Bad News for Biden
