“I used to find that it was an environment where I could do my job and feel good about my involvement with Fox,” said Mr. Wallace of his time with the network. “And since November 2020, that just became untenable, becoming more and more untenable as time went on.”
Still, he acknowledged that some viewers may be wondering why he didn’t leave sooner.
“Some people may have drawn the line before or at a different point,” he said, adding: “I think Fox has changed over the past year and a half. But I can certainly understand where someone would say, ‘ Gosh, you were a slow learner, Chris.’”
Fox News declined to comment.
Mr Wallace said his new CNN+ series, which airs Monday through Thursday at 6 p.m., is inspired by the work of famous interviewers such as Larry King and Charlie Rose. (His father, ’60 Minutes’ legend Mike Wallace, hosted a multifaceted interview program of his own in the late 1950s, with guests ranging from Henry Kissinger to the actress Jean Seberg.)
The show’s set is sparse, only Mr. Wallace and a guest sit on opposite sides of a Plexiglas table – a brighter-lit version of Mr. Rose’s long-running PBS format. Wallace said he hoped to have “the kind of intimate, thoughtful conversation where we forget we’re in a studio in front of the camera.”
Marketing materials for CNN+ feature prominently in Mr. Wallace alongside younger presenters such as former NPR presenter Audie Cornish, executive chef Alison Roman and actress Eva Longoria. The advanced age of some of his early guests — Ms. Collins is 82 and Mr. Shatner just turned 91 — also suggests that Mr. Wallace’s program could complement more millennial-focused fare.
The service, which costs $6 a month, will debut on Tuesday, years after the arrival of streaming competitors like Fox Nation and the CBS News Streaming Network. CNN executives see it as a major effort to gain a foothold with viewers canceling cable subscriptions in favor of online news alternatives.
Much is at stake for CNN, which is undergoing profound changes. The station’s parent company, WarnerMedia, is expected to be acquired by Discovery Inc in the coming weeks. A new president, Chris Licht, takes over CNN after the network’s longtime leader, Jeff Zucker, resigned in February over a secret relationship with a colleague.
