Dem
51
GOP
49
CNN is still trying to recover from the disastrous tenure of CEO Chris Licht, and yesterday the network unveiled its new, improved primetime lineup. Here is how the three main cable news channels will look during those hours, going forward:
| Timeslot | CNN | Fox | MSNBC |
| 7:00 | Erin Burnett | Laura Ingraham | Joy Reid |
| 8:00 | Anderson Cooper | Jesse Watters | Chris Hayes |
| 9:00 | Kaitlan Collins | Sean Hannity | Alex Wagner/Rachel Maddow (Mon.) |
| 10:00 | Abby Phillip | Greg Gutfeld | Lawrence O'Donnell |
| 11:00 | Laura Coates | Trace Gallagher | Stephanie Ruhle |
We don't have too terribly much to add, other than even if you didn't know these stations' editorial slants, you could see a photograph of their primetime lineups and make a pretty good guess. The two lefty stations feature more women than men in primetime, both have at least one Black anchor, and CNN, for its part, doesn't have a single straight, white male in their primetime block. On the other hand, 80% of Fox's lineup fits that demo. And while we didn't include the far-right channels, they would have continued the straight-white-guy trend if we had.
In the end, this lineup juggling is mostly just putting lipstick on a pig. The reason that all cable news is suffering from declining ratings is NOT that they haven't found the right hosts. It's that millions of viewers are cord-cutting, and that most people under the age of roughly 50 (maybe 60) don't want to get their news from a traditional-style broadcast (assuming they want to get their news at all). It's not unlike how ABC executives ran around for years, like chickens with their heads cut off, struggling to figure out why they couldn't recapture what they had, ratings-wise and zeitgeist-wise, with Monday Night Football after Howard Cosell went to the big end zone in the sky. Here's a hint, folks: The marketplace has changed.
And as long as we're on the subject of personnel changes at cable news outlets, we'll mention that Fox just canned its top lawyer, Viet Dinh. He had many things going for him, including an impressive pedigree, extremely right-wing politics, and a close friendship with CEO Lachlan Murdoch. However, he also botched the Dominion Case, neither settling it early, nor taking it to trial and winning, with the result that Fox took a nearly $800 million hit. Dinh exits with a $23 million golden parachute, so don't feel too badly for him. (Z)