(17-03-2023, 05:10 AM)Charles Wrote: It seems like they want to make a splash in the mornings by getting a lot of big, newsworthy interviews that are going to become daylong news items on both CNN and competing news outlets, not unlike Morning Joe at its height. It's not a bad strategy, but I agree that Don Lemon is just a really bad fit all around.
The other problem is just that CNN has never had a tradition of being very strong in the morning. Between local news and the networks, there's already too much competition, and both of those options are going to be more appealing to most morning viewers than anything CNN can put together.
I agree and that does seem to be the strategy - for it work they really need to go for full-on news though and not a mix of fluffy segments together with news. Essentially morning news for “the grump viewer” who gets irritated by typical morning fare and wants something akin to “evening news in the morning”. Since they’ve axed Morning Express too, it really ought to be fast-paced and the new show so far doesn’t seem that different in pace to New Day.
Morning Joe isn’t too far away from that model, but has become more discussion focused over the years, as I understand it (I don’t watch as I’m not in the US). It’s also more partisan than “new CNN” is trying to be. So there is an opening there if they can seize it.
Unfortunately, Don is associated with the recent scandals as a primetime host during the Cuomo years and doesn’t feel like the right personality for a news-focussed show as his own prime time segments were too laced with opinion (something encouraged by Zucker, but at odds with the new approach).
He has also had all of these recent gaffes which we can only assume are because he just doesn’t want to do mornings and is hoping to be moved off the show!
As to the other topics - good detective work on the studio, oscillon, and I really do feel for Victor Blackwell if this change wasn’t of his own choice. It’s also sad that his return is after Christi Paul has left, as they were such longtime co-anchors. He is a very solid journalist and I personally wish him all the best.
I do not understand the whole “secret extra hour of New Day / This Morning Weekend, branded as Newsroom” though. Why not just have the half-hour recorded programme in the middle of This Morning Weekend? Is it to do with ratings averages or something? There must be a reason, but like so many long-standing things in broadcasting it comes across as odd to the viewer.