media
Who Owns CNN? Warner Bros. Discovery, Until the Paramount Skydance Deal Closes
In brief
Who owns CNN?
CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ: WBD) — the company formed by the April 2022 merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery, Inc. WBD has one class of common stock and no controlling shareholder: the only holders above 5% disclosed in its 2026 proxy are BlackRock and State Street, both passive index managers.
CNN sits inside WBD's Global Linear Networks segment. It has no separate stock, no independent board, and no outside shareholders. Its fate is decided entirely by WBD's leadership and, now, by a signed agreement to sell the whole company to Paramount Skydance.
The ownership chain above CNN
The full chain runs like this: CNN → Global Linear Networks (operating segment) → Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (public company, NASDAQ: WBD) → a widely dispersed shareholder register dominated by index funds.
Warner Bros. Discovery was formed on April 8, 2022, when Discovery, Inc. completed its merger with WarnerMedia — the date the company's own filings use as the start of David Zaslav's tenure as its CEO. sec.gov WarnerMedia was the renamed Time Warner, which AT&T acquired on June 14, 2018 for total consideration of $79.4 billion — $36.6 billion in AT&T stock and $42.1 billion in cash, excluding Time Warner's net debt — before spinning it off in 2022. sec.gov CNN had been part of Time Warner since Ted Turner sold it in 1996.
| Shareholder | Shares | Percent of class |
|---|---|---|
| BlackRock, Inc. | 154,407,752 | 6.2% |
| State Street Corporation | 131,075,328 | 5.2% |
| The Vanguard Group | Reported 281,212,937 in October 2025 | ≈11.2% before a January 2026 internal realignment; no current figure reported |
| Everyone else | Balance of 2,506,679,418 shares | Not itemised — no other holder crosses 5% |
Those are the only holders above five percent that Warner Bros. Discovery identifies in its 2026 proxy statement, measured as of April 10, 2026 against 2,506,679,418 shares outstanding. Contrary to a claim that circulates widely online, neither Access Industries nor any Liberty entity appears on that list — WBD discloses no strategic block holder at all, and John Malone left the board at the 2025 annual meeting, staying on only as a non-voting Chair Emeritus. sec.gov
Warner Bros. Discovery disclosed 5%+ holders (April 10, 2026)
CNN's turbulent ownership history
CNN was founded by Ted Turner in 1980 as the world's first 24-hour television news network. Time Warner's acquisition of Turner Broadcasting System was valued at $7.5 billion when the Federal Trade Commission cleared a restructured version of it in September 1996 — a settlement that, among other conditions, required Time Warner's cable systems to carry a rival news channel to compete with CNN. ftc.gov CNN remained under Time Warner's ownership through its own acquisition by AT&T in 2018, then passed to the WarnerMedia spinoff in 2022 that created Warner Bros. Discovery.
Throughout that ownership chain, CNN went from an independent pioneer to a division of one of the most heavily indebted media conglomerates in the world. WBD has been paying that borrowing down: total debt stood at $32.8 billion at the end of 2025, against $39.5 billion a year earlier. Cost-cutting and asset rationalisation have been central concerns of the Zaslav era. sec.gov
CNN has passed through four corporate owners in 28 years — Turner, Time Warner, AT&T, and now Warner Bros. Discovery — without ever being independently publicly traded.
Leadership upheaval and the CNN+ collapse
CNN's leadership instability since 2022 has itself been a major news story. Jeff Zucker, who had led CNN for nearly a decade, resigned on February 2, 2022 after failing to disclose a consensual relationship with a colleague. His departure came just weeks before the WarnerMedia–Discovery merger closed. cnn.com
Chris Licht was named chairman and CEO of CNN Global on February 28, 2022, in an announcement filed with the SEC as part of the pending merger, and took the role once the deal closed. sec.gov CNN+ launched on March 29, 2022 and was shut down on April 30 — barely a month later. CNN had spent hundreds of millions of dollars programming and marketing the service under AT&T's ownership; no filing puts a precise figure on the write-off, so the widely repeated "$300 million" should be treated as an estimate rather than a disclosed number. fortune.com Licht himself stepped down in June 2023 after a damaging profile in The Atlantic and continued ratings pressure. wbd.com
Mark Thompson, the former BBC Director-General and New York Times CEO, was announced as CNN's chairman and CEO on August 30, 2023, effective October 9, 2023. His mandate is digital transformation and revenue diversification beyond linear television advertising — a structural challenge facing all legacy news networks. wbd.com
Corporate facts
Legal owner: Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.
WBD ticker: NASDAQ: WBD
WBD HQ: New York, New York
WBD CEO: David Zaslav
CNN CEO: Mark Thompson (since Oct 2023)
CNN facts
Founded: June 1, 1980 by Ted Turner
HQ: Atlanta, Georgia (with major bureaus in DC and New York)
Annual revenue: Not separately disclosed
Distribution: Cable, satellite, CNN International, CNN.com, CNN All Access
Could CNN be spun off or sold?
It is being sold — as part of the whole company. In June 2025 WBD announced plans to separate into two public companies, Warner Bros. and Discovery Global; by October 2025 the board had widened that to a review of strategic options including a sale of the entire group. In January 2026 WBD signed a merger agreement with Netflix, then terminated it on February 27, 2026 after the board judged a rival bid from Paramount Skydance to be a superior proposal. On the same day WBD signed with Paramount Skydance, which will pay $31.00 in cash per WBD share; Larry Ellison and an associated trust guaranteed $45.72 billion of that consideration. Completion remains subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals, and Paramount Skydance's obligation is conditional on WBD not having completed the Streaming & Studios separation first — so the long-discussed linear-networks spinoff that would have carried CNN has effectively been overtaken by the sale. sec.gov
Frequently asked questions
Is CNN owned by AT&T?
No. AT&T owned WarnerMedia (which included CNN) from 2018 to 2022. It then spun WarnerMedia off and merged it with Discovery to form Warner Bros. Discovery. AT&T is no longer part of the CNN ownership chain.
Does Ted Turner own CNN?
No. Ted Turner sold Turner Broadcasting System (and with it CNN) to Time Warner in 1996. He became a large Time Warner shareholder and board member, but has had no ownership or operational role in CNN since the transaction. He has since become a major philanthropist and bison rancher.
Who controls Warner Bros. Discovery's board?
No one shareholder does. WBD has a single class of common stock and discloses no holder above 5% other than the index managers BlackRock (6.2%) and State Street (5.2%). John Malone, a director since 2008, retired from the board at the 2025 annual meeting and was designated Chair Emeritus, a role that lets him attend meetings in an advisory capacity but not vote. David Zaslav sits on the board as CEO.
Is CNN profitable?
Not knowable from public filings. CNN's results are folded into WBD's Global Linear Networks segment, which covers all of the company's domestic and international television networks; no filing breaks out CNN's revenue or margin. Figures quoted elsewhere are outside estimates, not disclosures.
The bottom line
- CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ: WBD), which was formed by the April 8, 2022 merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery, Inc.
- WBD has one class of common stock and no strategic block holder. The only 5%+ owners it discloses are the index managers BlackRock (6.2%) and State Street (5.2%).
- CNN has no independent public stock, no separate board, and no outside shareholders — it is reported inside the Global Linear Networks segment and its standalone finances are never disclosed.
- CNN has cycled through Zucker, Licht, an interim and Thompson since 2022, and launched then shut CNN+ in about a month — a write-off no filing quantifies.
- On February 27, 2026 WBD agreed to be acquired by Paramount Skydance for $31.00 per share in cash, subject to regulatory and shareholder approval. That transaction, not a linear-networks spinoff, is what will next change CNN's owner.