#CNN’s Jeff Zucker joins the board of Group Nine’s acquisition company

CNN president Jeff Zucker has joined the board of directors of Group Nine Acquisition Corp., the blank-check company looking to roll up other digital businesses with Group Nine Media.

The Discovery-backed Group Nine — whose digital-media brands include food, drink and travel site Thrillist, news site NowThis, pop culture site PopSugar and Dodo, a site devoted to cute animal videos — formed the special-purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC) in late 2020.

While media execs joining SPAC boards isn’t new, all eyes have been on Zucker, who is plotting his next chapter after he exits CNN at the end of the year.

Sources told The Post that Zucker’s addition to the board is a money grab, and not necessarily indicative of any future moves.

“You make money being on a SPAC board,” a source said, noting that Zucker is also “close” to Ken Lerer, managing partner of venture capital firm Lerer Hippeau, which owns equity in Group Nine. Lerer is also the father of Group Nine chief executive Ben Lerer, who leads the SPAC.

The New York-based Group Nine SPAC, which went public in January, raising $230 million in order to acquire, merge or combine with other media-centric businesses, already has a buzzy group of execs behind it.

The board directors includes Group Nine president Brian Sugar, co-founder and partner of Imagination Capital and a director of Lazard Ltd and Lazard Group; Dick Parsons, the former Citigroup and Time Warner chairman; and Reddit chief operating officer Jen Wong. Technicolor SA vice chair Melinda Mount also joined the board Tuesday with Zucker.

“I have been a big fan of Group Nine Media’s work for years and recognize the unique opportunity that exists in consolidating the digital sector,” Zucker said in a statement. “I know that Ben and his team understand implicitly both where the digital industry is headed and what it takes to build a category-defining company.”