| "It is only awkward in that we are a Porsche going 40 miles an hour."
Connie Chung drew an audience. Most people here probably didn't like her, but as my father used to say, "There's an @ss for every seat." Roll her out and bring in Aaron Brown, and a fair number of the Connie Chung viewers will leave. They liked Connie Chung, and Aaron Brown is a totally different kind of "viewing experience." Whatever Aaron Brown's faults, there were bound to be some people who thought he was just The Greatest Thing. Now some of them leave, too. Every time they churn this show, they lose some fraction of the people who liked it the way it was. How many people does CNN think are out there whose idea of a good time is to watch a cable news show? Where do they think these Paula Zahn watchers are going to come from? Fox? It is to laugh. If they haven't figured it out yet, here's a vowel: the people watching Fox do not like CNN's politics. They could put J Lo on there in a negligee... once the novelty wore off, it'd be back to O'Reilly. Whether CNN likes it or not, their world has been forever segmented by Fox News. The conservatives are gone and they won't be back. Audiences will never again be what they were when CNN had a virtual monopoly on cable news. AOL Time-Warner is in a world of hurt, financially. There is nothing in CNN's future but haircuts and layoffs. This producer will be driving a Yugo before Paula Zahn gets to third gear. |
Yeah, and a year from now they'll be going 50 if they're lucky. It could as easily turn out to be 30. This kind of churn in prime time is evidence of desperation.