CNN Pres. On Olbermann’s Claim That Larry King Wanted Him Hired: “It Didn’t Work”

Q&A

by Steve Krakauer | 3:37 pm, June 30th, 2010

» 16 comments

The CNN host announced last night he’s ending his 25-year show in the fall. His boss, CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein told Mediaite “to be able to pull together and get out on air in a classy, optimistic way, blew me away.” We talked to Klein about what happens next for King (and Anderson Cooper, and John King), the new Spitzer/Parker show and more.

Mediaite: In your statement last night you said “Larry is a beloved member of the CNN family and he will continue to contribute to our air with periodic specials.” Can you describe what King means to CNN but also, what you expect his new role to look like?

Klein: Larry has meaning of course to CNN but really the entire TV industry. Larry lured tens of millions of Americans over to cable. There really wasn’t a compelling reason to watch those weird channels until Larry came along. That’s his place in media history. That of course helped put CNN on the map. Ted Turner says news is the star, but in fact Larry King was the star. He will continue doing specials, and his mind is racing with possibilities. At lunch yesterday it was so much fun to see him brainstorming, blue-skying about the next phase. So with the announcement behind him, he and Wendy Walker will focus on developing specials, thinking about what the scope will be, what the style will be. They’ve got a lot of initial thoughts to really wrap their arms around in the coming months.

Mediaite: Last night Keith Olbermann tweeted: “Larry King is a lovely, generous man who tried, for eight years, to convince his bosses to hire me to be his 8 PM lead-in at CNN.” Is this true?

Klein: Well it didn’t work.

Mediaite: But is it true?

Klein: Larry’s got a million ideas a day.

“To suggest all our marbles are in one particular show, one schedule, one lineup is not the way the world works especially in a 24-hour news operation.”

Mediaite: It feels like when fall comes, with Eliot Spitzer and Kathleen Parker’s new show and whatever is put at 9pm, this will be a majorly revamped prime time. Do you have the feeling this is do or die, in the sense the stakes are particularly high?

Klein: Have you noticed every fall, every network has a new lineup? Is it ever do or die? Of course not. It’s an ongoing evolution process, and we have high expectations of all these new initiatives we’re planning. To suggest all our marbles are in one particular show, one schedule, one lineup is not the way the world works especially in a 24-hour news operation where we’re judged minute by minute on how well we’re covering what’s going on in the world.

Mediaite: If, and I know it’s a big if, Piers Morgan is named host of the 9pm hour on CNN, it would mean all the leaks and speculation, Spitzer/Parker and now Morgan, was correct. Does that concern you, that there are leaks coming out of CNN regarding these major staffing decisions?

Klein: It’s such a big “if” it’s not worth talking about.

Mediaite: But the leaks about Spitzer and Parker turned out to be true.

Klein: It’s a big organization with a lot of moving parts. People can speculate away. Usually the people who don’t know are who are doing the speculating. It’s a reflection on the place CNN holds in pop culture. A lot of people care what we’re doing.

NEXT PAGE: Will Anderson Cooper’s 10pmET show stay the same, the value of patience.

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anderson cooper, CNN, eliot spitzer, John King, Jon Klein, Kathleen Parker, larry king, Piers Morgan

notsofast

Yes, CNN needs an outstanding person like Morgan to carry its mantle!

Editor sacked over ‘hoax’ photos
Piers Morgan

The Mirror board said Morgan would be stepping down immediately
Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan has been sacked after the newspaper conceded photos of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi were fake.

In a statement the Mirror said it had fallen victim to a “calculated and malicious hoax” and that it would be “inappropriate” for Morgan to continue.

The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment (QLR) said the Mirror had endangered British troops by running the pictures.

Roger Goodman, of the QLR, said the regiment now felt “vindicated”.

Mr Goodman added: “It is just a great pity it has taken so long… and that so much damage has been done in the meantime.”

At a news conference in Preston on Friday afternoon, the regiment demonstrated to reporters aspects of uniform and equipment which it said proved the photographs were fake.
lazzzlo

Quote from the article/Jon Klein…”It’s a reflection on the place CNN holds in pop culture. A lot of people care what we’re doing.”

My reflection of CNN was always….News.
BJL411

Ted Turner says news is the star, but in fact Larry King was the star.

This is why CNN has only 4 viewers left. They are totally out of sync with what CNN was born to be.. Ted Turner left and CNN turned into a useless piece of fluff over time.

Used to be the only channel I had on and proably 12 hrs a day.

Now, (with Fox banned from my home by me) , I’m stuck watching MSNBC on occasion, having to tolerate Chris Matthews love affair with himself and the dumb bimbos who are on in the morning. CNN has gone down the toilet and with their recent addition of some nutjob right wing blogger (Erick Erickson I think it is).. I quit watching them for good and told them so.. and why.

CNN quit covering world news. They’ve turned their CNN other channel into some entertainment crap and that loon Nancy Grace.. that channel used to be good for repeated 30 min headline news. The main CNN used to be news.. REAL NEWS from around the world.. but with an idiot in charge they decided to try and copy that dispicable Fox snooze right wing channel due to ratings.

This is what happens when corporates buy out entities like CNN.. it’s all about profits, not integrity, news, truth and all that silly stuff.

So now I have to stick to blogs and on tv I’ve turned from CNN to Bravo and HGTV and the green channel Planet Green.

Let’s just get completely rid of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC and start over…
BJL411

I forgot to add I think this show with Spitzer/Parker will fail and fail quickly. I know who both of them are, have watched them many times, and their personalities will not mix well for viewers.

Elliot’s been filling in on occasion for Dylan Ratigan and has done a great job.. fumbled a bit but he’s new to it. He has the charisma and smarts to get his own show.. pairing him with Kathleen will be a huge failure. I’d rather have him as president than on this new show.. His smarts are wasted here.
murf

Hiring Keith Olbermann is a death wish, he is a disaster and keeps his employers hostage , with his juvenile antics and threats. He already has Phil Griffin by the balls.

Ps. Check out Olbermanns Twitter , the dude argues with people about his ratings ALL day !
Grammie

Usually KO waits for people to die before claiming them as his close friends and ardent admirers.

I sure hope KO hasn’t jinxed him.
Tesseract2

The news used to be the “star” of CNN. Now it’s all about big names and personalities and trying to come off as “cooler” than the guy on the other channel. That’s precisely why their ratings are so bad.
http://www.abramsresearch.com/ Dan Abrams

Hmm. I wonder whom Jon Klein is referring to here: “The guy you work for tried for a long time to grow his audience and it takes time. His network didn’t have patience with him, but we’re going to have patience with John.” It is a tragedy that Mediaite Managing Editor Colby Hall never had a cable news show, so I will assume that is me? (ha)

Actually patience has nothing to do with the current state of cable news. Take my 9p ET show — it was up 73% year-to-year but that still didn’t make it the right show for MSNBC’s more politicized prime time. Indeed, Rachel Maddow proved that patience isn’t required when her ratings soared right out of the gate.

The issue is what works on a particular network as part of a well-choreographed programming mix, something Klein tries to wish away by extolling the supposed virtues of patience in TV news.

And what is he hoping will change with John King’s show while he’s being patient? Does he really believe King’s show will suddenly explode in the ratings outside of discreet political moments?

John is a fantastic reporter and a talent any network would be lucky to have on the team. But that doesn’t make him the right fit for a CNN prime time host in the current programming climate, as the ratings show. His show is down 40% year to year from Lou Dobbs.

There are some great ways to use King’s talents. Maybe they should offer him what MSNBC offered me, an afternoon anchor slot and fill in time hosting the network morning show. Then maybe King could pass, work part time for CNN, and go start a media business online. I promise its a lot of fun!
http://insidecablenews.wordpress.com/ Spud

“Maybe they should offer him what MSNBC offered me, an afternoon anchor slot and fill in time hosting the network morning show.”

Ohhhhhhhh….did you just reveal something you shouldn’t have revealed? Probably not. But that’s still news to me…

But more to the point, Klein is right. MSNBC showed no patience with your show. You can say in the end it worked out well for everyone involved but it was still a gamble at the time. And I would say an unecessary and undeserved gamble. They still could have put you on at 10 except they just loved their repeats and crime docs.
libra blue

Mediaite should have asked Klein why he thinks Anderson’s ratings have tumbled, considering the massive amount of money and promo CNN puts into Anderson and 360 each and every year. Anderson has done great work in the past and has been doing some great work lately, but he has lost the respect of many viewers in the last few years which he has never been able to regain.
http://SailRabbits.com Magister

I suspect that Larry will probably end up with something more in-line with Barbara Walters’ gig: semi-regular thematic interview specials and maybe a couple of newsmakers, per year.

Oh and @Steve, not to be a pain, but you’ve got a two-screen interview with the President of CNN and the headline is his non-answer regarding Keith Olbermann?
Lurker

You should’ve asked him how the hell he was going to bring in conservative viewers with Palin basher Parker? Who knew of Parker before she started on Palin? This show is doomed for failure…

Also should’ve asked him, why not Coulter? LOL, would’ve loved his reasoning considering he hired Spitzer
http://insidecablenews.wordpress.com/ Spud

“Anderson has done great work in the past and has been doing some great work lately, but he has lost the respect of many viewers in the last few years which he has never been able to regain.”

You’re going to have to explain this sentence to me because it appears to be an oxymoron. How can a guy be doing good work now and in the past and yet still lose “the respect of many viewers”? I don’t see a connection.
http://apostrophejones.com Apostrophe jones

Olby is quite mad , you know .
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mark-Daniel-Martinez/1173380356 Mark Daniel Martinez

I like how, since you guys don’t like Olbermann, then everyone must not like him either. Very logical thinking going on here. I guess the show just stays on the air by magic.
RTB

Murf, agreed with you 100%
“Larry king wanted me hired” ROFL, who’s he kidding?
Cnn aint a great network, but they aint no dummy either, this would have been a cancer to them, wasnt a brilliant move on there part, it was a no brainer…