Free Republic

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...

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...

<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>