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

Q&A
» 16 comments

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)

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  • 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…

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