Remember when MTV stood for Music Television, and they showed these things called music videos? Remember when TLC stood for The Learning Channel before they aired shows like Toddlers & Tiaras and Jon & Kate Plus 8? Well Jeff Zucker (sounds like hooker) revealed to
Capital New York that CNN will soon be doing a lot less News on the Cable News Network. Just like Headline News, sorry HLN, who dropped the headline news coverage a while ago.
Zucker, who has been running the network (further in to the ground) for about a year, has not had a successful news program launch since he started. His morning show is a bust, Crossfire didn’t even cause a spark and the rest is losing viewers when the crap isn’t hitting the fan in the news world. The only thing that has been doing well under his so-far failed reign are the documentary programs like Blackfish and Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, so he has decided he wants to do more of that type of programming, instead of letting news be the star.
CNN recently had a gathering for people who had been with the company for 30 years and then a few weeks later laid a few of them off. In fact, a lot of the old timers lost their jobs over the last year, and sounds like even more of them will. That is because he plans to use outside production companies to fill some of their primetime slots. He even said in the article that he is thinking of having half hour shows in during that time. Here’s an idea, get rid of the unlikable Piers Morgan and try to bring back Larry King. It has gotten so bad over at CNN for the names we trusted that this weekend when I watching their news coverage, I was thinking how much longer will they allow the very well-versed Candy Crowley to keep her job over there. On that note, how is Wolf Blitzer, who is as exciting as watching paint dry, still anchoring as much news as he is during their daytime hours.
Actually, the best idea is to bring back news, something they have seemed to forget about. News is what made the network a star and the most trusted name in news, a while back. It was a documentary type program that hurt the network’s image. Yes, that plot from HBO’s Newroom this season really happened at CNN back in 1998 and they have never been the same.
Someone needs to borrow James Earl Jones from Sprint and have him record CNN’s news slogan, “This was CNN” because it is no longer the CNN we knew and trusted. It is a sad day for the once prominent news channel.
