CNN has announced a series of planned personnel and programming changes coming to the network that will significantly alter its dayside programming.
CNN’s weekday 9 am to 12 pm block will soon be a stand-alone program out of the network’s New York studios, the network said, anchored by John Berman, Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner. Berman, Bolduan and Sidner will share anchoring duties, the network said.
The weekday 1 pm to 4 pm time slot will be a second stand-alone program out of CNN’s Washington bureau and will be anchored by Brianna Keilar, Boris Sanchez and Jim Sciutto.
Longtime network reporter and anchor John King will have his “Inside Politics” show staying in its noon time slot on weekdays.
Alisyn Camerota, who has been filling in as a host for CNN’s 10 pm time slot since Don Lemon was moved to mornings late last year, will focus solely on that prime-time program, the network said, with Laura Coates rounding out CNN’s evening lineup , hosting an 11 pm show.
Camerota’s current daytime co-host Victor Blackwell is being moved to anchor the 10 am hour on Saturdays and will co-anchor “CNN This Morning Weekend” with Amara Walker out of Atlanta. Former White House reporter Jim Acosta is picking up additional anchoring duties on the weekend as well.
The outlet did not specify exactly when the changes would go into effect, saying only that viewers could expect to see them “in the coming months.”
“CNN’s Dayside audience is highly influential, with executives and leaders watching from their offices around the country as the day’s news unfolds,” said Chris Licht, CNN’s new president, who took over last summer. “We are learning into our greatest strengths, showing our unparalleled news gathering operations and giving our anchors the room to be more authentic. We’ve seen how our audience responds to this format, and we believe it will put us in a position of strength going into the evening and primetime hours.”
Since taking over, Licht has made changes to the network that has garnered widespread media attention and rattled some employees. One of his first acts as president was shuttering the network’s highly promoted streaming service CNN+ less than a month after it was launched.
He more recently implemented a series of deep cuts to the network’s newsroom amidst budget shortfalls and has been tasked with boosting the cable news giant’s slugish ratings and dipping profitability.
Licht has also signaled a new vision for CNN’s editorial strategy and resulting reputation, where journalism and news reporting takes a back seat to punditry and sensationalism.
Last year, CNN parent company Warner Bros. was sold to conglomerate Discovery in one of the larger media mergers in recent years.
