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

Mediaite: Anderson Cooper has been slipping in the ratings – he just had his second lowest quarter ever this past quarter. There was also a live audience experiment recently. Do you expect in the new prime time that his show will remain at 10pm, in the same format?

Klein: I don’t know. I just don’t know. I tune in every night at 10 and see the best newscast on TV, night in and night out. That’s all I ask of Anderson and his team.

Mediaite: John King USA is now three months in, and the ratings have dropped the most compared to last year when Lou Dobbs was there. Are you concerned about the program and its role as the lead-in for the Spitzer/Parker show?

Klein: Naturally you would, in changing shows, lose Dobbs viewers. It takes time to recruit new viewers. 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. He’s a fantastic reporter, nobody knows politics like he does. He’s steadily gaining his feet under him. He’s going to be an important part of our team for a long time.

Mediaite: Rachel Sklar‘s column in The Daily Beast was about how white the cable news networks are still, in the context of the Spitzer/Parker hires but also Lawrence O’Donnell at MSNBC. Do you think that’s a fair criticism?

Klein: I will say diversity is important throughout our business. We have a diversity of points of view and people who present them, people who anchor our programs throughout the day. We’re looking for the very best people to put on our air.

Mediaite: You mentioned on Reliable Sources that in the age of YouTube and blogs there are new voices emerging. We do a web show every week, Office Hours, that we wouldn’t mind finding a new home for. Any interest?

Klein: Truth be told, I’m surprised you were not able to get this scoop – we’re putting you in to replace Larry King.

> Update: Dan Abrams responds in the comments section of this post. In part:

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.

(This has been edited for length and clarity)