Following the announcement that Gayle King and Charles Barkley have signed a contract with CNN to host a weekly primetime show called King Charles, insiders within the network have come out to express their displeasure with the move, according to an insider who spoke to Fox News Digital.
“People are pissed,” one source told the outlet, adding that staffers were particularly worried about the alleged $12 million salary King is expected to rake in for her contributions on the show. Reportedly, the news channel has faced extreme budget cuts since last year, which lent to numerous staffers being laid off from the company. Most notably, CNN’s president and top exec, Chris Licht, pulled the plug off CNN+, a new streaming service the network had been working years to put together. He decided to scrap the service just one month after it launched.
The news of King and Barkley joining CNN comes just months after Barkley called CNN a “sh*t show” and gesticulated that he would “never” do a daily show, according to another FOX News Digital report.
Meanwhile, a CNN spokesperson said that the $12 million King is expected to receive has been bloated by the press, and hinted that her salary would be way less than what has been reported.
Another source said that Laura Coates, a Black woman at the network who serves as a legal analyst, should have been given her own show instead, stating that she is “well-liked and a team player,” according to the report.
The source added that CNN staffers would be “up in arms” if the network does not work to “address diversity in primetime beyond a one-day-a-week show with King and Barkley.”
“I hope management sees it the same way and we avoid a big bruhaha. We’ve had and continue to have enough of them,” the insider said.
