Audition For Prime Time? Velshi Fills in For Sanchez This Week

With Rick Sanchez on vacation this week, CNN turned to a non-traditional anchor to fill the high-profile daytime slot. Every day this week at 3pmET, chief business correspondent Ali Velshi has taken over for the new media star. What does it the move mean? For Velshi, it could signal big things to come (even if he won’t admit it to us).

“It’s a nice opportunity to flex different muscles,” Velshi tells Mediaite this afternoon. “I like to be known as a guy willing to do stuff, to fill-in, to try different things.”

But with CNN’s prime time ratings continuing to flounder, this week may, and should, serve as an audition for a later hour.

Velshi downplayed the “audition” element, but it was his boss who described the high hopes for Velshi in prime time back in November. Jon Klein told me, “Ali Velshi emerged as the star of TV news coverage of the financial crisis…He’ll be showcased in prime time.”

Although Velshi has primarily covered the economy, during his career at CNN he’s reported from Pakistan after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and from the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.

Yesterday during his afternoon hour, he pulled his economic background into Iran coverage, describing how the tensions in the region lead to higher oil prices. “There’s no design in my role here to be economically focused,” he says of his fill-in work.

And like Sanchez, he’s brought in the Twitter, Facebook and MySpace commmunities. “It was a lot of fun doing that yesterday,” he said. “It really added to the dynamism of the show.”

Once @RickSanchezCNN is back in the drivers seat on Monday, it may be time for CNN to get Velshi his own vehicle.

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