CNN president Jeff Zucker plans to step down at the end of this year

• CNN Worldwide chief executive Jeff Zucker will leave when his contract expires at the end of 2021.

CNN Worldwide chief executive, Jeff Zucker, is planning to leave the media company when his contract expires at the end of 2021, according to a newsroom announcement made on Thursday.

Zucker said he came close to quitting, CNN reported. But since wanting to leave the company, he said he had a change of heart. "I want to stay," he said on a CNN editorial call. "Not forever, but for another year."

Zucker has had a long and controversial run at the cable news company which is owned by AT&T. He has been negotiating his future with the company for the past few months keeping staff wondering. AT&T's WarnerMedia chiefs have at times been willing to part with him, and then more recently have wanted him to stay.

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Zucker started his career as a researcher on The Olympics, and rose through the ranks at NBC News running the "Today" show and later becoming chief executive of NBCUniversal before it was acquired by Comcast.

Zucker joined CNN in 2012 after a short run running a syndicated talk show with Katie Couric. To his credit, CNN ratings are experiencing a bounce as a Biden presidency gets under way and the pandemic continues to keep viewers riveted to TV news broadcasts. The network ended January as the number one channel in all cable, beating Fox News.

The top news executive however has weathered his share of difficult times at the news organization which was the target of a bomb threat in New York in 2018. President Trump's intense dislike of critical coverage from the network led supporters to chant "CNN Sucks," at rallies.

The network's prime time host Don Lemon told NBC having Zucker at the helm was the best part of his 15 years at the company. Now, he'll "spend the next year trying to convince him to stay longer."