CNN goes back to the old losing team … think Brian Stelter

Facing falling ratings, CNN attempted a remake under the leadership of the network’s new owner, David Zaslav, and his new operational head, Chris Licht.   Chris Cuomo had been booted from his primetime spot prior to the leadership change for using CNN to help his brother, Governor Andrew Cuomo, get past a brewing scandal.

The new team at CNN promised to bring the network back to the center and devoted to objective journalism.  They dropped the morning team of John Berman and Brianna Keilar.  While they did not put it in so many words, the reason was obvious.  Berman and Keilar were too politically biased for the new approach. 

Don Lemon was demoted from his primetime show to anchor the morning program along with Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins.  From the outside, it looked like a change of faces without much of a change in ideology.  If they thought that Lemon would blend into the new moderate format, they were wrong.

The management recognized the mistake and quickly booted Lemon altogether and reassigned Harlow and Collins to other positions in the lineup.  Harlow was later booted off the CNN campus and Collins was given her own primetime show, “The Source.”  CNN tried a couple more short-lived variations for the morning show – changing personnel and format.  Still, nothing was working.

During this period the very biased CNN White House reporter John Harwood was dumped as was the ever-acerbic Brian Stelter – whose media analyst show, “Reliable Sources,” had become more of a left-wing political vehicle.

Then … CNN suddenly dumped Licht for yet another new top management approach to stop the rating’s downward trajectory.  Instead of something new, however, we got the old.  Berman was brought back to anchor the new morning show, “CNN News Central” — but this time with Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner.  They brought the show back to its former leftward lean.

If you harbor any doubt about CNN’s return to the past, just consider their latest announcement.  They are bringing back media critic Brian Stelter.  WHAT?  No, this did not come from an article in the satirical publication, “The Onion.” 

They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.   I would add this correlation.  Doing the old, failed thing again and expecting different results is insanity on steroids.

I will be shocked if the new (old) approach works.  With this kind of programming, I suspect that CNN will be lucky to hold its current distant third place in the ratings doldrum against the run-away frontrunner FOX News and distant second place MSNBC.

FYI… the current overall ratings for the three major cable news networks are 1.3 million viewers for FOX … 850,000 for MSNBC … and 550,000 for CNN.

So, there ‘tis,