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http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/cnn/0903/23primetime.html?urac=n&urvf=10643489956980.7520239648255277Link via Drudge CNN's prime-time ratings still down despite overhaul By CAROLINE WILBERT The Atlanta Journal-Constitution CNN still is putting the final touches on its new prime-time lineup, but the first two weeks' worth of ratings are down compared with last year. The network said Monday it has hired contributors -- including former Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke and Time magazine columnist Joe Klein -- for the 8 p.m. show, "Paula Zahn Now." Zahn's show drew an average of 598,000 viewers in its first two weeks since CNN relaunched it with the new name. That was down 25 percent from...

September 16, 2003 General Manager Is Replaced in a Reorganization at CNNBy JIM RUTENBERG railing in the ratings behind the Fox News Channel, CNN announced a reorganization yesterday meant to help it produce more compelling news programs. The changes include a management reshuffling in which Teya Ryan, the general manager of CNN's domestic network, will step down. She is to be succeeded by a Viacom executive, Princell Hair, whose main experience has been in local television news. The main change, said Jim Walton, CNN's president, is a fundamental shift in the way CNN collects its news. The network has traditionally...

<p>September 16, 2003 -- CNN news chief Jim Walton had a "private converation" with reporter Christiane Amanpour after she accused her own network of being "intimidated" in its coverage of the Iraqi war.</p> <p>Amanpour, a guest on last week's "Topic A with Tina Brown" on CNBC, set off shockwaves in the TV world over the weekend when she said she thought her employer, CNN, was "muzzled" in its war coverage by a combination of the White House and its competitive position with the higher-rated Fox News Channel.</p>

Teya Ryan is leaving CNN after serving as general manager of U.S. programming for about 18 months. In the latest top-level shuffle at CNN, Teya Ryan is leaving her post as general manager of U.S. programming, the network announced. Her successor is Princell Hair, who joins CNN from Viacom, where he was vice president of news for the Viacom Television Stations Group. In that role he oversaw news coverage across the Viacom portfolio of 39 television stations operating in 15 of the 20 top markets in the United States. Prior to joining the corporate ranks of Viacom, Hair was...

Bum start for CNN's 'Zahn' and 'Cooper'Best hopes for stemming slide against Fox News By Kevin Downey     CNN's hopes of reclaiming No. 1 from Fox News Channel were dealt a major setback this week with the disappointing premieres of “Anderson Cooper 360” and “Paula Zahn Now.”      The audience for “Cooper” on Monday was down 47 percent in the 7 p.m. time slot occupied last year by “Crossfire,” to 319,000 people, while “Zahn's” audience of 508,000 people was down 45 percent in the 8 p.m. time slot briefly occupied by the canceled “Connie Chung.” All figures are based...

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Fox News Channel was the only cable news service in August to grow in viewership from a year ago, gaining 20% in primetime and 29% across the entire day, according to Nielsen Media Research. By comparison, CNN fell by 9% in primetime and total day, while MSNBC lost 21% in primetime and 11% for the day. Headline News and CNBC also suffered losses greater than 20% compared with August 2002. It marked the 28th consecutive month that Fox led the news channel pack. For the month, Fox averaged 1.3 million viewers in primetime, compared with...

CNN's prime time anchors, Paula Zahn and Anderson Cooper, will officially launch their new shows Sept. 8. Zahn's show, a straight news program, will be called "Paula Zahn Now" and Cooper's show, which will have a faster-paced style, will be called "Anderson Cooper 360." A cast of contributors for Zahn's show will be announced later this week. Cooper's show, which targets younger viewers, will feature several regular segments devoted to media, including "Inside the Box," which will analyze TV news coverage, "Fresh Print," a look at the hot topics in current magazines, and "Weekender," which will preview upcoming movies and...

Nearly two years after Greta Van Susteren defected from CNN to archrival Fox News, she has plenty to say about her former employer -- and not much good. "What happened to CNN is a disgrace," Van Susteren said in an interview to promote her new book, "My Turn at the Bully Pulpit." The problems at CNN, she said, started when parent company Time Warner merged with AOL and laid off employees. But she also criticized recent moves by Jim Walton, named president of Atlanta-based CNN early this year. Van Susteren thinks Walton made a mistake by downsizing boisterous debate show...

She gives dumb blondes a bad name.

Five months after CNN canceled Connie Chung's 8 p.m. show, the network still is fiddling with the replacement -- and losing viewership. Chung's show often was criticized for its tabloid feel, and last winter newly named CNN President Jim Walton shelved it in favor of a hard-news show featuring one of the network's best-known anchors, Paula Zahn. Zahn has anchored the 8 p.m. hour most of the time since, although CNN officially will launch and rebadge the program Sept. 8, spokeswoman Christa Robinson said. Initial ratings suggest more than a catchy name may be needed. Viewers seem to have preferred...

<p>In New York -- which has reported about 70,000 violent crimes a year since 1998 -- police reported four burglaries in the entire city overnight, and said they had made arrests in all four.</p> <p>Three deaths overall have been reported that were tied to the outage.</p>

Dick Morris The Political Life Bias-mongers on rocks as viewers taste straight newsI am sure we were all surprised to learn in the Aug. 11 issue of The New York Times that people are " burned out on serious news." How else could the bastion of establishment journalism account for the falloff in network news viewership and, unnoted in the article, the newspaper's own decreasing circulation?Yet the evidence is all there. People don't care anymore. That must be why The Times' circulation has fallen 5 percent and 1.1 million fewer households are watching network television news compared to last...

August 11, 2003 Suffering News Burnout? The Rest of America Is, TooBy JIM RUTENBERG as the nation's television audience burned out on serious news? Kuni Takahashi/Boston Herald, via Reflex News; ReutersDespite a number of serious news events playing out this summer — like the war in Iraq, above, and the civil war in Liberia — television news programs have been drawing fewer viewers than last year. American soldiers are dying in Iraq almost daily, questions are continuing to swirl around the Bush administration's case for the March invasion and United States Marines are poised off the coast of Liberia....

By accident, I stopped on CNN just as they were doing a story on the anniversary of the successful peace action at Nagasaki in 1945. They showed some older Japanese people as the female announcer, in a voice deep and wet with concern, told about today's moment of silence at 11:02 in commeration of the time in 1945 when "a B-52 dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki."

NEW YORK -- CNN anchor Jack Cafferty will pay a $250 fine and perform 70 hours of community service after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, prosecutors said Tuesday. Cafferty had been charged with the traffic infraction, along with misdemeanor charges of reckless driving, assault and harassment, after police said he knocked a man off a bike with his Cadillac on May 14. A traffic officer and about five pedestrians ran after Cafferty's car to stop him after the accident, but Cafferty drove through at least two red lights and around other vehicles without stopping, according to...

From Monday’s Late Show with David Letterman, the “CNN Unfortunate Word Choice of the Night,” taken from an actual CNN Headline News channel report. A bishop or a bitch? With “First Look” as the graphic over video of New Hampshire priest Gene Robinson, and with “Landmark Hearing” across the bottom of the screen, the female CNN Headline News channel anchor described how an Episcopal conference “will vote on the confirmation of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. He would become the first openly gay Episcopal bitch [slight pause] bishop.” Now that really is an unfortunate word choice. Letterman like...

CNN to Package News by Topical Themes(2003-07-17) -- As the major news organizations go into their annual summer re-run cycle, CNN announced today it will package its programming in topical categories as "headline theme shows". Among the categories scheduled for rebroadcast: -- Arab TV airs more tapes from guys we thought we had killed. -- Democrats shocked and saddened at things George Bush does. -- If you lived here, this weather would probably kill you. -- Someone you never heard of is missing...possibly killed. -- The economy, while apparently rebounding, will likely get worse. -- Diseases with acronyms or animal...

RPT-CNN Head Shrugs Off Fox News Ratings RivalryThu July 10, 2003 08:35 PM ET Jim Walton, president of the CNN News Group of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., speaks to television critics during his presentation at the Television Critics Association Summer press tour in Hollywood July 10, 2003 along with CNN news anchors Paula Zahn (L) and Soledad O'Brien. Walton discussed the cable news networks programming changes, which includes Zahn's new evening and O'Brien's new morning news programs.Photo by Fred Prouser/Reuters By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - As CNN reshuffles its anchor lineup, the head of the network said on...

<p>With Fox News clobbering it by a 1 million to 2 million viewer margin at night and a 250,000 margin in the morning, CNN, the onetime cable news leader, is regrouping.</p> <p>Starting today, former NBC Weekend Today host Soledad O'Brien joins Bill Hemmer on American Morning from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. ET/4 to 7 PT. O'Brien replaces Paula Zahn, who has moved to the 8 p.m. ET/5 PT slot, where she faces cable king Bill O'Reilly. Former ABC anchor Anderson Cooper now anchors the 7 p.m. ET/4 PT hour.</p>

<p>This suspected chemical warhead discovered at an air base near Kirkuk, Iraq, is marked with a green band, which sources said is the symbol for chemical weaponry.</p> <p>KIRKUK, Iraq (CNN) -- Weapons experts were called Saturday to an occupied northern Iraqi air base in Kirkuk to determine if a warhead discovered there is laden with a chemical agent.</p>