CNN Fail

Brian Stelter has a good read in the NYT about CNN's ratings decline, saying they've conceded first place to Fox and now seem to be letting second place in cable news belong to MSNBC. He also wrote that a source told him:

"Jim Walton, who oversees all of the CNN networks, and his boss, Phil Kent, who runs the Turner Broadcasting division of Time Warner, were under “intense pressure” to raise the ratings this spring. "

And Stelter quoted an industry analyst who agreed with what we have said here before:

About half of CNN Worldwide’s revenues come from subscription fees. Cable and satellite operators pay the equivalent of 57 cents per subscriber per month for CNN, according to Derek Baine of SNL Kagan. Mr. Baine said he doubted that low ratings would diminish CNN’s subscription fees, even years from now. “They have a powerful brand name and are part of a big media company with a lot of leverage,” he said.Inside CNN, that brand name is a persistent source of pride for employees who are puzzled by the low ratings and frustrated by what they say is a leadership vacuum.

Here's the link to Brian's article that was posted online today.


The Wall Street Journal also posted an article today about CNN's epic fail. They say:

It is shaping up to be a different story this year. CNN's two main rivals Fox News and MSNBC have gained viewers in the past year, compared with the same period in the 2008 presidential cycle, while CNN has lost them, according to Nielsen Media Research.



Mediaite just posted this audio clip of Rush Limbaugh talking about the problems at CNN. We're not Limbaugh fans in any way, shape or form but he does have some interesting observations.

We've done many, many a post trying to tell CNN what the viewers want, maybe someday they will finally listen?

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Is the Gossip True for Parker/Spitzer?

photo courtesy of The Wrap

Brian Stelter of the New York Times tweeted today that Parker/Spitzer could soon be in for a change. He sites two sources that say Kathleen Parker is out and also added "CNN's silence on this matter has been deafening for several hours. We are trying hard to gain comment from CNN, Spitzer, and Parker." To follow Brian on Twitter just click on this link.

The New York Post writes (edited, please follow the link for the entire article):

Eliot Spitzer is telling friends his CNN co-host Kathleen Parker "will be gone within a week." Relations between the ex-gov, who once called himself a "[bleep]ing steamroller," and his conservative co-host are at an all-time low. A source said, "Spitzer thinks she's holding him back. The ratings surged when she was out sick, and he anchored alone during the turmoil in Egypt. Only very few anchors have the power to wipe out a co-host, and Spitzer thinks he has it. CNN bosses are high on Spitzer, and he might get his own show. Kathleen has been weighing her options. There's this sense of dread among middle management." We've reported that Parker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, could be dumped due to lack of chemistry with Spitzer. But our source said, "She's putting up a fight." CNN President Ken Jautz recently said, "There have been lots of press reports that I am contemplating changes, but I'm not going to engage in any speculation." A CNN rep declined to comment.

The Wrap reports:

Kathleen Parker, the co-host of "Parker Spitzer," CNN's four-month-old, ratings-challenged primetime show, is being dropped from the program, according to sources inside the CNN newsroom. Eliot Spitzer, her co-host, will remain.

A representative at CNN did not return an email and phone call requesting comment.

The move has been rumored for some time now. Spitzer hosted the show earlier this month while Parker was reportedly sick, and the show saw a 68 percent jump in 25-54-year-old viewer

The 8 p.m. show was announced last fall, as a replacement for Campbell Brown, with former CNN president Jon Klein's seal of approval. The roundtable format -- with Spitzer, the former New York State governor and Parker, the conservative columnist -- marked a shift to opinion-based programming for CNN, which had shunned the ideological fare favored by Fox News and MSNBC.

And the ratings for "Parker Spitzer" simply never materialized. In its first week on the air, "Parker Spitzer," had an average audience of just 465,500 viewers for its debut week; disgraced former CNN host Rick Sanchez's "Rick's List" averaged 468,000 total viewers during its brief run in the same time slot. (It even lagged behind HLN's Nancy Grace, who averaged 550,000 total viewers during the "Parker Spitzer's" first week.)

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Anderson Cooper's Game Plan

Anderson Cooper in Daytime Talk Show Deal
By BRIAN STELTER for the New York Times

Anderson Cooper.The CNN anchor Anderson Cooper will add a second show to his daily duties, a light-hearted daytime talk show, next year.

The syndication arm of Warner Bros. said Thursday that it had signed a deal with Mr. Cooper to host a daytime show starting in the fall of 2011. The untitled show will be topical, covering “social issues, trends and events, pop culture and celebrity, human interest stories and populist news,” the company said in a news release.

Mr. Cooper is also renewing his contract with CNN, where he hosts the channel’s signature newscast, “Anderson Cooper 360,” weeknights at 10 p.m. His existing contract was believed to be up in 2011. “I remain as committed as ever to my program on CNN, & will be with CNN for years to come,” Mr. Cooper said in a statement.

Warner Bros. and CNN are sister units of Time Warner.

Mr. Cooper’s talks with Warner Bros. were first reported by The Hollywood Reporter Wednesday night.

Warner Bros. will be shopping Mr. Cooper’s program to prospective stations in the weeks ahead. Stations are busy rebuilding their daytime schedules in light of Oprah Winfrey’s plan to end “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in September 2011, which leaves a major hole in the schedules of her partner stations. Most of those stations are replacing Ms. Winfrey’s show with “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” “Dr. Oz” or a local newscast. In many cases, that means the shows are shifting to new time slots, creating vacant spaces that Warner Bros. hopes to fill with Mr. Cooper’s program.

In a news release, Ken Werner, the president of Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, said that the fall of 2011 “begins a transition period when long established franchises are leaving the air and making way for a new generation of shows.”

“Anderson Cooper is one of the most distinctive voices of the next generation of television,” Mr. Werner continued. “His popularity and skills uniquely position him to be the next big syndication franchise.”

Mr. Cooper, 43, is best known as a silver-haired newsman who travels the world for CNN, most recently distinguishing himself by spending weeks in Haiti after the earthquake there and in Louisiana during the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But he has long held an interest in the softer side of television, too, regularly visiting “Live with Regis and Kelly” and other daytime shows.

Before joining CNN in 2001, Mr. Cooper hosted a reality show for ABC called “The Mole” and co-hosted the overnight “World News Now” for that network.

A daytime talk show could enhance the exposure of Mr. Cooper, whose 10 p.m. program trails in the ratings behind the bigger cable news channels Fox News and MSNBC. But it could also dilute Mr. Cooper’s personal brand and tarnish his news credentials in the minds of viewers.

Once the daytime program starts, it seems unlikely that Mr. Cooper will be able to rush to the scenes of breaking news, although Warner Bros. did say he would sometimes “take the audience along with him right into the eye of the storm, as he goes beyond the headlines and into the lives of those affected.”

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