Mar 3, 2009 10:52 AM
18
Enter your username and password.
New York, 11:57 PM
Fri Mar 12
37 posts in the last 24 hours
It's been a rough few weeks for CNN. Ratings have falling fast, especially for primetime programs hosted by Anderson Cooper and Campbell Brown, news that came to light the same day Brown rather bizarrely confessed her apartment had been invaded by "toxic mold" in recent months. To make matters worse, this past weekend the Daily News revealed that Jeffrey Toobin, CNN's very-much-married legal analyst, has been having an affair with the daughter of former colleague Jeff Greenfield, and may have even gotten her pregnant, too. So how is CNN CEO Jon Klein responding to the bad news?
He isn't. Of course, that isn't anything new for the highly unreliable exec, who told the Observer late last year that the network was expanding when, in fact, it was laying off staff.
A few weeks ago, Klein announced that Brown's program was doing "remarkably well," and had become a "winning formula" for CNN, even though the figures released last week made it very clear that she isn't remotely close to catching up to her primary competitor, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. (The Times reports today that Brown has been behind Nancy Grace with the coveted 25-54 year-old demo, too.) Klein also claimed that Larry King was "on a roll," although as Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici points out, the 112-year-old talk show host is quickly losing ground to MSNBC, too: "Rachel Maddow appears to be on a course to overtake Larry King in a matter of months, if not weeks, a development that will surely hasten his already-overdue retirement." (Hope you're a fan of Ryan Seacrest.)
Perhaps the only good news is that Klein seems to have stopped trying to prop up D.L. Hughley recently. (Back when the show debuted, Klein described the horrific host as a "news junkie who is bursting with things to say about what is going on in the world—most of them funny, all of them thoughtful, none of them predictable.") But give him some time. It will come any day now.
Why CNN Could Use Some 'Impotent Rage' [Portfolio]
Anderson Cooper Win "Remarkable," Economic News Will Drive 2009 [HuffPo]
Contact information for this author is not available.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
Start a new discussion