CNN shakes up news administration

CBSMarketwatch ^ | 01/23/04 | Jon Friedman

[Pikamax]

CNN shakes up news administration By Jon Friedman, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 5:40 PM ET Jan. 23, 2004

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - CNN, a unit of Time Warner, is shaking up its U.S. news organization and announcing a new Washington bureau chief.

TRADING CENTER

Princell Hair, executive vice president and general manager of CNN's U.S. operations who joined CNN last year, said Friday in an internal statement, a copy of which was obtained by CBSMarketWatch.com, that he is making sweeping changes.

In Washington, Hair appointed David Bohrman, the executive producer of Aaron Brown's show "NewsNight," to be the new bureau chief.

Hair's memo said CNN is "working with" the previous bureau chief, Kathryn Kross, "on a new role with the network." He didn't offer any details.

Kross didn't return a phone call placed to her in the Washington bureau.

In Atlanta, where is CNN has its headquarters, some staffers were concerned that Hair's changes underscore the management's desire to centralize what it had often been a de-centralized news-gathering operation, and a consolidation of the general news production.

Hair said to his troops: "As good as this news organization is -- and make no mistake, it is the best in the world -- it can be even better."

CNN is facing considerable pressure to re-establish itself. This is an opportune time for CNN to assert itself, in the early stages of the presidential campaigns as well as a news-rich year that will also include the rebuilding of Iraq, a continuation of the war on terrorism and the Athens Olympics.

In the past few years, CNN has fallen behind Fox News (FOX: news, chart, profile) in the widely followed TV ratings. CNN long held an advantage over its competitors when big stories broke. But even during the Iraqi war last spring, Fox led in the ratings, underscoring CNN's decline in popularity among American TV viewers.

Hair said the company was making changes because it wanted to "increase the degree to which newsgathering and programming are fully integrated. Nowhere is this integration more important than in our DC bureau."

Hair cited Bohrman's "passion for the news and skill as a producer."

CNN's Washington bureau is one of the network's ornaments. Its reporters, led by the White House correspondents John King, Dana Bash and Suzanne Malveaux and the national security reporter David Ensor and Justice Dept. correspondent Kelli Arena, are widely respected.

But CNN has been hurt by defections of some of its on-air correspondents.

In addition, CNN is changing its chiefs' responsibilities in its 11 domestic bureaus, saying the current system of having bureau chiefs in some cases double as reporters "does not fully make sense."

In most cases, "reporters will no longer be domestic bureau chiefs," he said. He will assign full time administrators to be the bureau managers.

In addition, the U.S. will be divided into four regions, Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, West as well as Washington, DC. Each segment will be managed by a regional bureau chief and a supervising producer will manage daily activities in the outlying bureaus, Hair said.

Boston and New York will make up the Northeast region and will be managed by Karen Curry in New York, Hair said.

Atlanta and Miami will encompass the Southeast and be supervised by MaryLynn Ryan in Atlanta. CNN has expanded the Chicago and Dallas bureaus and added Denver to comprise the Midwest region, which will be led by Edith Chapin in Chicago. Los Angeles bureau chief Pete Janos will direct the Western region, including Seattle and San Francisco.

Jon Friedman is media editor for CBS.MarketWatch.com in New York.

[Howlin]

They surely are taken with each other, aren't they?

[Timesink]

CNN was threatened to be dropped off the channel lineup of DISH Network. I was watching the CEO of Echostar, Charlie Ergen, explain that CNN has dismal ratings, no one watches them, and they bear the burden of paying for a channel no one watches. It may have been an idea tossed out there, but I know Charlie Ergen really cares about all of us DISH Network customers by giving them the kind of channels they want at a fair price.

That was definitely a shot across the bow aimed directly at Time Warner management. The media conglomerates are increasingly trying to screw the cable and satellite companies, both by annually jacking up the amount they charge the cablecos for channels that the cablecos couldn't possibly ever drop without their subscribers going nuts (ESPN, for example), and also by making the cablecos some "offers they can't refuse": "Oh, you're not going to run CNN? Okay then, we're not going to allow you to run any Time Warner networks then. No Cartoon Network, no HBO, no Cinemax, no TBS, no TNT..." Any cable company that couldn't run any of those channels would end up out of business. It's pretty much legalized extortion. And it's why almost all the new channels you get on digital cable and satellite are owned by the same three or four media conglomerates: When the yearly contracts come up, they say, "Okay, you're going to start carrying MTV 14, and pay us for it. Take it or leave it."

I've been saying for a long time that the day is coming where cable and satellite companies are going to switch to a la carte programming, where you pay only for the channels you want. Whether this happens because the cablecos finally get some backbone, or because they get the FCC to mandate it, I don't know. But the showdown is coming.

[Timesink]

Thanks for jarring my memory, thats what I was thinking of. It's been a decade since I been in television. Mostly doing radio these days.

You're probably having more fun, too. :)

I just want to get back in the biz, radio or TV, I don't care. I don't even care that it's crawling with liberals. It's in my blood.

[BigSkyFreeper]

I've certainly noticed it. When they all cover the same event, like the SOTU address, the audio of FOX has more bass and punch than MSNBC and CNN and it's easier to listen to. Without adjustments to my set, flipping between the three, MSNBC to me looks like it lacks color, CNN is slightly better, and FOX is about where I would normally like it. As for the audio, to me, CNN is softest, followed by MSNBC, and then FOX.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Don't get me wrong, I didn't mind television. I worked at a cable access channel while going to broadcast college back in 1989. Loads of fun, and it was small enough I got to do everything from host, run camera, direct, and run the switches. I'm in small market radio, similar sort of workload as like a small cable access , TV channel. LOL

Never a moment to stand around with my hands in my pockets looking like I was lost. LOL

Radio is a blast, no matter where your at. :)

[Timesink]

Also, I think Susan Esterich got some plastic surgery! anyone else notice that?

I can honestly say the answer to that question is NO. :)

[BigSkyFreeper]

Yep, alot of DISH Network subscribers went nuts when DISH yanked ABC Family because Disney raised their prices across the board two years ago. Disney fought long and hard, DISH threatened to take them to court, then Disney lowered their price to a fair rate when DISH yanked ABC Family, while leaving everything else.

Personally, it was no big deal for me, but that's another example of a provider trying to strongarm a media giant.

[BigSkyFreeper]

I'd like to see an ala carte subscription scheme setup myself. There's alot of crap I don't watch or have no intention of watching. Especially some of the Community Service channels like Free Speech TV. It's a liberal whacko cesspool. Years ago, when I had a large backyard dish, in the days before media conglomeration, I could literally sit down, and pick and choose the channels I wanted. Charlie Ergen said he'd love to do that, but in this day and age, he'd get conglomerates like Time Warner torqued off.

[TYVets]

Isn't this latest 5 year program in the last 2 years?

[lainde]

bttt

[Jeff Gordon]

I did not realize that CNN was still broadcasting.

[gonzo]

"...Hair said the company was making changes because it wanted to "increase the degree to which newsgathering and programming are fully integrated. Nowhere is this integration more important than in our DC bureau."..."

First, fire every-single-klintoon-suckhole in the Company!

Second, ya might as well sell the half-dozen or so people left to FOX News.

Third, convert all the real estate into homo-condos or low-rent housing for 'minorities'.

"...Kross didn't return a phone call placed to her in the Washington bureau..."

D'ya think she's pissed?...............FRegards

[My Dog Likes Me]

Hey folks, give them a chance.
They knocked the crap out of Michael Jackson last week and Howard Dean for the past five days. I was impressed!

[Common Tator]

You in news anywhere now, Tator?

I used to own a small chain of Radio Stations.... sold them to Clear Channel a few years ago.

I also had a broadcast software company. The last thing I did was the software that switched Time Warner Cable news Channels from video tape to digital a few years back. I sold that product line a few years ago. I mostly goof off and wake up every morning wondering why I'm not dead yet.

[justaguy]

The third envelope said "Leave three envelopes...."

[OldFriend]

CNN's idea of attracting new viewers was to run that digusting zipper ad when Paula Zahn defected from FNC.

[Common Tator]

They are doing the things Ailes invented to attract new viewers. They are running the fast paced slides with strong bumper music to start segments. They are using pretty news babes to read the news. They are copying the look and feel of Fox.

They actually do well at getting channel flippers to stop. I don't remember the exact number but the average viewer stays tuned to FOX for 45 minutes or so. The average viewer at CNN stays for about a third of that length of time.

CNN actually has more people stop on the channel than Fox... The people that stop don't stay tuned. That screams that it is not the look that is the problem, it is the content. But each new boss tries to make a better content.

There is only one reason a channel programmer who wants to keep his job fails to fix the content. If he did they would fire him before the audience went up.

Time warner is like a King that goes a doctor and tells the doctor that if he prescribes the medicine that will cure him, he will have him beheaded. Then the king wonders why no doctor can cure him.

[Endeavor]

Shuffle all you want, if you don't knock off the "slant" we're still staying away.

[irish guard]

CNN can shake all it wants, it will still be a haven for whining, bed-wetting lefites to ply their trade, and that is the reason no one really cares to watch CNN...

[Endeavor]

No kidding on the Larry King/Aaron Brown lovefest. And no kidding on Aaron not having a wit's worth of anything to say. I really detest that guy.