‘CNN This Morning’ Executive Producer Moves to Nights As Network Continues to Face Ratings Headwinds
The executive producer of CNN’s newly reimagined morning show is leaving after less than three months on the job, moving to nights where he will work on Laura Coates’s 11 p.m. program.
Eric Hall, who oversaw the launch of CNN This Morning in November, will move on to develop Coates’s new show and the Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow, and Kaitlin Collins-hosted morning program will get new executive producer.
While the departure of an executive producer is sometimes an ominous sign for a program — especially a fledgling one like CNN This Morning — a source familiar with the move told Mediaite that Hall was “tapped to shift his focus” to support Coates now that CNN This Morning is “off the ground and running.”
Whether or not CNN originally planned to have Hall stay on for the long run is unclear. He could have not been the right fit for the show, but is seen internally as an impressive EP whose talents might be better used at 11.
The news comes days after CNN announced last week a “revamped dayside programming lineup” and noted that Coates would permanently take over the 11 p.m. hour while daytime CNN Newsroom anchor Alisyn Camerota will take over 10 p.m.
Hall’s move to 11 p.m. is a reflection of the network’s recent move to “focus more” on prime time programming and a search for Hall’s replacement is ongoing, according to those familiar with the changes.
While CNN This Morning has had time to settle into cable news viewers’ schedules, ratings show the young morning program has still yet to catch on and surpass even the beleaguered ratings of its predecessor.
After taking over as chairman and CEO of CNN in May 2022, Licht oversaw the end of the streaming service CNN+ and quickly canceled Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources. Revamping CNN’s morning show was Licht’s next major programming change at the network, which had been long expected as CNN New Day had been floundering in the ratings and Licht had successfully helped to launch MSNBC’s Morning Joe as the executive producer.
New Day struggled in 2022 averaging only 413,000 total viewers, less than half of Morning Joe’s 849,000 average viewers for the year. Fox & Friends, meanwhile, remains the dominant force in cable news morning shows having brought in 1.36 million average viewers in 2022.
Since its launch, CNN This Morning is averaging 410,000 total viewers on CNN, while the network as a whole continues to face ratings headwinds. CNN This Morning, however, does regularly beat Morning Joe in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demographic. Notably, CNN This Morning also began airing on HLN and the combined simulcast has averaged 459,o0o total viewers since beginning on December 6th.
In 2022, CNN landed in third behind Fox News and MSNBC with a total day average of 568,000 total viewers – a 27% drop from 2021. In the demo, CNN landed in second place with 123,000 viewers, a decrease of 35% from the year before, but still ahead of MSNBC.
