This time last year, Jeff Zucker was running CNN, Chris Cuomo was its biggest star and Brian Stelter was the in-house media pundit tasked with nitpicking conservatives at every turn. 

None of them are employed by the network as of next week. Since that time, CNN’s much-hyped streaming service launched and was quickly shut down, too. 

Licht has regularly signaled major changes would take place since he took over the job last spring. He put an emphasis on "news" in his initial email introduction to staffers, discussed looming changes at an internal town hall event, told advertisers he would "reimagine" CNN’s morning show and issued new guidelines urging producers to tone down the "breaking news" banners to not present stories in an alarmist fashion.

His biggest change to date came this week when Licht canceled CNN’s poorly rated "Reliable Sources" media program and ditched Stelter, its polarizing host who was well-liked inside CNN’s Hudson Yards headquarters but seen as the poster boy for media bias and industry insularity by conservatives.