A survey conducted by CNN has found that its reputation has not been hurt by President Donald Trump's accusations of "fake news," CNN CEO Jeff Zucker said.
Zucker said that he was concerned the drum beat from the White House was tarnishing the brand, and he commissioned one of the network's biggest studies ever.
"We are still incredibly trusted," Zucker said. "There is no impact whatsoever from all these attacks on the CNN brand."
Zucker noted that CNN's ratings are up and that digital usage is at record levels.
CNN is also having a record quarter from ad sales, added Turner president David Levy. He added that no advertisers pulled out of CNN for fear of being called out by Trump.
While President Trump has threatened to block the proposed merger between AT&T and CNN parent Time Warner, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes assured Congress at a hearing on that deal that threats by the then President-elect related to CNN's coverage would have no effect on their coverage.
Turner CEO John Martin said that after Time Warner shareholders approved the acquisition of the company by AT&T, the two companies will begin having integration meetings.
Up until now, the companies have been focused on the regulatory review and have not engaged because of gun-jumping rules, Martin said.
Martin added that the Justice Department had recently made a second round of information requests in its review of the deal.
(Photo via David Shankbone's Flickr. Image taken on Feb. 16, 2017 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 9x16 aspect ratio.)
