CNN-ed: Campbell Brown Latest Casualty in CNN Nosedive
by Bill Dusty
As CNN continues its self-immolation in the cable television arena, the latest casualty in their quest for eye-glazing programming is anchorwoman Campbell Brown.
Brown announced her resignation from CNN the other day, saying her 8pm show simply couldn’t compete with the opinion-oriented programs that rival cable networks Fox News and MSNBC had in the same time slot.
In an unusually frank statement on her decision to step down, Brown acknowledged that she did not have the desire to transform her show into the opinionated, pundit-type program that her rival hosts – Fox’s Bill O’Reilly and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann – had carried off so well. Months ago, Brown reportedly had asked CNN to move her time slot to 7pm in order to prevent its being crushed by the two opinion-maker powerhouses. But that request was denied. She asked to get out of her contract early shortly thereafter.
Thanks to her ability to be honest with herself and to self-analyze a bad situation and understand when a battle is lost, Brown leaves CNN with both her class and her dignity intact. An excerpt from her written statement on her resignation:
I knew on the day that I accepted my job at CNN that a ratings victory at 8pm was going to be a formidable challenge. As I have been told over and over, this is the toughest timeslot in cable news. That is obviously due to the incredible talents of my 8pm competitors. I have also always marveled whenever a television anchor says that he or she pays no attention to ratings. I’m pretty sure the last time any anchor could honestly ignore ratings was well before I was born. Of course I pay attention to ratings. And simply put, the ratings for my program are not where I would like them to be. It is largely for this reason that I am stepping down as anchor of CNN’s “Campbell Brown”.
To be clear: this is my decision, and one that I have been thinking about for some time. As for why, I could have said, that I am stepping down to spend more time with my children (which I truly want to do). Or that I am leaving to pursue other opportunities (which I also truly want to do). But I have never had much tolerance for others’ spin, so I can’t imagine trying to stomach my own. The simple fact is that not enough people want to watch my program, and I owe it to myself and to CNN to get out of the way so that CNN can try something else.
CNN will have to figure out what that is. The 8pm hour in cable news world is currently driven by the indomitable Bill O’Reilly, Nancy Grace and Keith Olbermann. Shedding my own journalistic skin to try to inhabit the kind of persona that might co-exist in that line up is simply impossible for me. It is not who I am or who I want to be; nor is it who CNN asked me to be at any point. This is the right decision for me and I hope it will be a great opportunity for CNN.
Campbell Brown’s failure in going up against Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann is not her fault. (Brown mentions Nancy Grace, too, who hosts a show on CNN’s Headline News at 8pm. But Grace, like Brown, hovers in six-figure purgatory for audience numbers, while O’Reilly reigns at 3.3 million and Olbermann follows up with over 1 million.) CNN has long had this holier-than-thou attitude about news programming that has doomed its anchors to mediocrity. The cable network insists it’s primary focus is on “objective” news reporting. But that’s a sham. CNN’s reporting through the years has always been politically correct and progressive in its focus (Need I mention its “environmental” series, dramatically entitled, Planet in Peril?) In other words: booooring.
CNN’s drive to force-feed straight news reporting in the prime time arena has repeatedly met up with failure, yet the network insists on beating its journalistic head against the walls that are Fox News and MSNBC. Of course, even when it does try to compete in the later 9pm and 10pm time slots, the ancient Larry King (averaging 628 thousand viewers in the latest ratings) and Anderson Cooper (743 thousand viewers) also fail to measure up to Fox’s Sean Hannity (2 million viewers) and Greta van Susteren (1.89 million viewers), respectively. (MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, meanwhile, the Goddess of Liberalism often considered by her fawning fans as the ultimate media persona – despite having never even sniffed Bill O’Reilly’s viewership numbers – comes in 2nd at the 9pm news slot vs. Sean Hannity with 976 thousand viewers.)
CNN’s list of casualties is a long one. What journalists haven’t been canned outright have sought greener pastures elsewhere. A small sampling of the network’s losses:
- Greta van Susteren (2002)
I remember CNN morning hosts laughing about her new show on Fox (as well as her new face lift) when she debuted her “On The Record with Greta van Susteren.” Those morning hosts are no longer around. Meanwhile, van Susteren routinely thumps CNN’s Anderson Cooper by over a million viewers at their 10pm time slot.
- Bill Hemmer (2005)
Hemmer left CNN to become a daytime host on Fox News. He more recently broke gay hearts everywhere when it was reported he was dating, gasp, a woman!
- Miles O’Brien (2008)
O’Brien was canned by CNN after they dismantled their science and technology department (O’Brien was their science reporter) in yet another one of the struggling network’s cost-saving maneuvers. O’Brien joined PBS in 2009 and also currently writes for the website True Slant.
- Lou Dobbs (2009)
Dobbs resigned from CNN in December of 2009. According to a Wiki page on him, he describes himself as an “independent populist” who favors immigration enforcement and opposes NAFTA. He is currently out of television, but hosts a syndicated radio show. I’m somewhat surprised Fox News hasn’t scooped him up.
- Christiane Amanpour (2010)
In perhaps their highest profile loss to date, legendary CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour left the struggling cable network this past April after nearly three decades of service. (She began at CNN as a foreign desk assistant back in 1983.) Amanpour is set to become the anchor for ABC’s “This Week.”
2010 also saw the departures of anchors Erica Hill (left for CBS in January), Betty Nguyen (left for CBS in March), and now Campbell Brown.
So when will the blood-letting stop?
Despite past announcements denying an impending merger of CNN and CBS’s news division, rumors persist about a future CNN-CBS marriage due to the continued gloomy outlook for network newscasting. But how any such merger might slow down CNN’s long, miserable slide into mediocrity remains uncertain.
CNN should understand that the days of 24-hour newscasting going up against what used to be meager prime time entertainment programming on cable are long-since over. There is just too much variety out there these days. Fox and MSNBC realized a long time ago that in order to effectively compete with the prime time lineup, they had to entertain the masses. Nowadays, people are inundated with news from the time they wake up (television and online), all through the day (radio and online), and into the early evening (local and network television newscasts). By the time 7 or 8pm rolls around, we have had enough. Straight news programs can’t compete against a rerun of “True Lies,” never mind The O’Reilly Factor.
Make us laugh. Make us cry. Make us scream or pound our fists. But please, for crying out loud, don’t continue to insist on putting us to sleep with yet another report on the Gulf oil spill.
It’s enough to make you want to quit your job.
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