Barry Diller, the chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group, declared he would “absolutely” buy CNN, doubling down on his prior interest in the news organization.
The media mogul reiterated his stance on a possible CNN ownership during the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival on Tuesday, where he said he “would do it tonight and tomorrow night … before they ruin it any further.”
He added: “Hopefully before it’s extinct, which, I mean, it’s not gonna be.”
As Diller continued, he noted that CNN was “so ripe” for innovation, in a way that he hasn’t “seen in almost 10 years.” Specifically, Diller highlighted that CNN’s on-air product needed more investment, but shouted out the investments into the digital aspects of the company.
The fate of CNN has been a looming question amid Paramount Skydance’s mission to buy Warner Bros Discovery. (David Ellison’s $110 billion bid emerged victorious back in February, with WBD shareholders voting in favor of the bid last month.)
Diller questioned what’s to come with the merger, noting that locating billions in promised cost cuts at a merged company could be a “savage process,” adding, “So how they do that and navigate also running the surviving businesses…I don’t know.”
Diller’s comments come nearly four months after it was first reported that the billionaire businessman expressed interest in buying CNN in 2025.
As we previously reported, Diller expressed interest before Warner Bros. Discovery’s review of strategic alternatives became public last year. Though, an insider familiar with the matter told TheWrap in January that Diller met with a few executives from management, but that no serious action was taken nor was it brought to the company’s board of directors. The individual added that CNN was very important to the company’s distribution agreements and that selling off the network separately would result in a large tax bill.
However, in March, he did lay out the plans he had for owning CNN, telling journalist Graham Bensinger that he has been “very interested” in acquiring the news network for the past several years — and that he’d change the Warner Bros. Discovery property in “every way” were it to come to pass.
Still, Diller has plenty to navigate with his current business, sharing last week that he was shaking up IAC with a rebrand to People Incorporated, a C-suite change and cost-saving measures, including a technology integration and a round of layoffs.
In a letter shared at the end of April, Diller said the decisions would “significantly reduce” the company’s overhead and give it “room and energy to be agile and opportunistic” as it focuses on two core assets: People’s publishing and our holdings in MGM Resorts.
“We have an excellent balance sheet with plenty of cash to pursue opportunities. It’s possible we’ll find new arenas, that’s always an option, but for now we’ll concentrate on the two we have in front of us,” Diller said at the time. “We’ve gone through four cycles since our founding more than 30 years ago, each one seeing opportunity in the dark. I can’t tell you where the next journey will take us but can say with confidence that the base from which we start is square on solid, and…from there…we will proceed.”
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