CNN PRESIDENT HINTS AT PROGRAMMING OVERHAUL

Stating what would seem to be the obvious, Turner Broadcasting chief Phil Kent told a media conference in New York on Thursday that CNN’s ratings have been falling to record lows in primetime because “we haven’t put the best shows on the air.” Kent told the Nomura U.S. Media & Telecom Summit that he was “very unhappy” with the network’s recent ratings collapse and conceded that it may have been “self inflicted.” But he gave no indication of what he intended to do about the problems and his remarks often seemed contradictory. For example, he said that CNN’s primetime lineup had “very high potential” and praised host Anderson Cooper as a star who “is not getting a star’s ratings and that’s because of lead-ins.” But he had praise for some of those lead-ins as well, calling Piers Morgan a “tremendous interviewer” and Erin Burnett a “great get.” Kent seemed to suggest that he had no plans to remove any of the primetime hosts, but “if we raise the quality and we do it with consistency the ratings will be just fine.”