
<p>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.</p>



<p>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. ;</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>Then &#8230; CNN suddenly dumped Licht for yet another new top management approach to stop the rating&#8217;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” &#8212; but this time with Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner. They brought the show back to its former leftward lean.</p>



<p>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.” ;</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>FYI&#8230; the current overall ratings for the three major cable news networks are 1.3 million viewers for FOX &#8230; 850,000 for MSNBC &#8230; and 550,000 for CNN.</p>



<p>So, there ‘tis,</p>

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