A hipper look for CNN Headline News

Post-Ted posh

A hipper look for
CNN Headline News

New set, chit-chatting anchors and breaking stories

By Kevin Downey

     Question: What could possibly have been duller than CNN Headline News when Ted Turner was running the cable network?
    Answer: Nothing.
    Now that Turner is out, the network is about to undergo a cosmetic makeover, and one that presumably will lead to a major revamping under the new and more aggressive leadership of CNN by Turner chief Jamie Kellner.
    Next month the network will chuck the talking-head half-hour news blocks that have been its signature for nearly two decades.
    In their place it will introduce a slew of fast-moving on-screen graphics and a team of interacting anchors.
    At least in the short term the revamping isn’t expected to boost viewership of Headline News, long one of the lowest-rated cable networks.
    But following Turner’s notorious resistance to change, even a cosmetic makeover is considered a big step.
    "I think well of the new leaders, and brighter and prettier never hurt," says Reese Schonfeld, who co-founded CNN with Ted Turner in the late 1970s and was president and chief executive officer until 1982.
    "The biggest positive about it is that they are trying. Headline News, of all the CNN services, has changed the least in the past 20 years, and it needed it the most. It had all the mediocrity that big companies sometimes permit."
    The changes are also a sign that parent company AOL Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting CEO Kellner aren’t holding the network’s original concept in reverence, as Turner did.
    Instead, the makeover is more likely the first of many steps toward aggressively competing with newer cable news networks and the internet. These efforts will be spearheaded by Walter Isaacson, the former top editor of Time Inc. who took over last week as chairman and CEO of CNN News Group.
    The overhaul of Headline News is intended to make the news faster and livelier.
    To that end, at least four anchors will be sitting in the round in a new studio. Among them will be Andrea Thompson, who left ABC’s "NYPD Blue" to become a news anchor.
    According to CNN, the anchors will talk to each other, and there will be more live coverage of breaking news stories.
    Graphically, Headline News will have running streams of news at the top and bottom of the screen with information like weather and sports updates. Up to five separate graphics can run at one time as the anchor team delivers the news.
    New music is being added as well and will be used, along with onscreen colors, to distinguish between different time periods and different types of news stories.
    But while viewers may come in to sample the changes at Headline News, it’s doubtful that ratings for the network will improve much, at least initially.
    "It might cause more people to stop and spend a little more time with the channel," says Bill Marchetti, an analyst with Paul Kagan Associates. "Whether that leads to appointment viewing, I don’t know. I don’t think it will have much of an impact on ratings."
    Although the network is available in over 70 million homes, it’s viewed by an average of only 143,000 homes.
    Headline News is among the lowest-rated networks, with an average of 0.2, and it is the lowest-rated Nielsen-measured cable network in primetime.
   The promotional tag line for its new look, "We’re changing everything but our name," may mean bigger changes are coming.
    "To look far ahead, for any network that has been there for a while and is reaching virtually every cable system and isn’t doing great, ratings-wise, there’s always a possibility that the format will change completely," says Marchetti.
    But a radical change would take time, however, since cable operators that have signed multi-year deals to carry Headline News as it is presumably would have to approve any radical format changes.
    The problem for Headline News is that the very format that was so innovative 20 years ago now restricts it from building its audience.
    Quick news pieces that are largely repeated every half-hour mean that viewers are unlikely to stick around for more than a few minutes. That holds audience levels down and has meant that newer cable news networks, like MSNBC and Fox News, have been able to surpass Headline News’s ratings.

CABLE NEWS RATINGS - HOUSEHOLDS 2nd Quarter - 2001 vs 2000 Monday-Sunday Total Day
		Q2 '01		Q2 '00		% Change '01 vs. '00
#	Net	Rating%	(000)	Rating%	(000)	Rating%	(000) %
1	NICK	1.4	1104	1.5	1174	-7	-6
2	LIF	1.2	969	1.1	833	9	16
3	TOON	1.1	836	1.1	682	0	23
4	TBS	1.0	803	1.1	888	-9	-10
5	TNT	0.9	704	0.9	707	0	0
6	USA	0.8	665	0.9	694	-11	-4
6	AEN	0.8	643	0.9	657	-11	-2
8	DISC	0.6	477	0.6	486	0	-2
8	HIST	0.6	400	0.6	355	0	13
10	MTV	0.5	428	0.6	451	-17	-5
10	ESPN	0.5	426	0.6	456	-17	-7
10	TLC	0.5	394	0.4	300	25	31
10	FX	0.5	339	0.5	244	0	39
14	TNN	0.4	352	0.4	281	0	25
14	AMC	0.4	315	0.5	331	-20	-5
14	CMDY	0.4	287	0.4	245	0	17
14	HGTV	0.4	274	0.4	233	0	18
14	SCIF	0.4	269	0.4	251	0	7
14	BET	0.4	260	0.3	196	33	33
14	TVLD	0.4	230	0.4	194	0	19
14	WGNC	0.4	224	0.5	225	-20	0
14	LMN	0.4	64	n/a	n/a	n/	n/a
23	CNN	0.3	254	0.3	253	0	0
23	CNBC	0.3	250	0.4	278	-25	-10
23	FAM	0.3	250	0.3	246	0	2
23	TWC	0.3	222	0.3	216	0	3
23	FOXN	0.3	213	0.3	132	0	61
23	EN	0.3	204	0.3	198	0	3
23	APL	0.3	195	0.3	149	0	31
23	MSNB	0.3	177	0.3	141	0	26
23	FOOD	0.3	176	0.3	125	0	41
23	TVGC	0.3	160	0.3	144	0	11
23	CORT	0.3	152	0.3	108	0	41
23	TDSN	0.3	68	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
35	VH1	0.2	178	0.2	170	0	5
35	ESP2	0.2	162	0.2	156	0	4
35	HLN	0.2	143	0.2	132	0	8
35	TRAV	0.2	98	0.1	54	100	81
35	CMT	0.2	93	0.2	94	0	-1
35	BRAV	0.2	86	0.2	72	0	19
35	GAME	0.2	84	0.3	66	-33	27
35	ODSY	0.2	61	0.1	39	100	56
35	SOAP	0.2	21	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
Source: Turner Entertainment Research from Nielsen Media Research data. Cable news networks are in boldface.

CABLE NEWS AUDIENCE in 000s - DEMOGRAPHICS 2nd Quarter - 2001 vs 2000 Monday-Sunday Total Day
		ADULTS 18-49				ADULTS 25-54
#	Net	2001	2000	% Change	Net	2001	2000	% Change
1	LIF	530	467	13	LIF	566	486	16
2	TBS	521	555	-6	TBS	501	545	-8
3	TNT	462	451	2	TNT	487	456	7
4	USA	409	434	-6	USA	412	413	0
5	NICK	363	408	-11	NICK	350	386	-9
6	TLC	309	230	34	AEN	337	356	-5
7	DISC	308	323	-5	DISC	323	339	-5
8	ESPN	306	331	-8	TLC	285	233	22
9	TOON	273	214	28	ESPN	281	303	-7
10	AEN	270	297	-9	HIST	259	238	9
11	MTV	258	252	2	FX	251	162	55
12	FX	257	172	49	SCIF	232	214	8
13	CMDY	235	194	21	TNN	228	177	29
14	HIST	232	211	10	TOON	225	198	14
15	TNN	226	157	44	CMDY	179	156	15
16	SCIF	201	203	-1	AMC	176	181	-3
17	BET	155	112	38	HGTV	168	136	24
18	EN	152	142	7	TVLD	157	143	10
19	VH1	151	146	3	MTV	150	143	5
20	AMC	142	143	-1	EN	143	129	11
21	TVLD	140	124	13	TWC	134	124	8
22	HGTV	134	105	28	VH1	130	125	4
23	WGNC	123	116	6	WGNC	123	111	11
24	FAM	120	110	9	BET	115	71	62
25	APL	118	82	44	FAM	115	113	2
26	TWC	112	110	2	FOOD	113	78	45
27	ESP2	110	110	0	APL	112	85	32
28	FOOD	103	67	54	ESP2	111	107	4
29	MSNB	92	77	19	CNBC	108	121	-11
30	TVGC	92	101	-9	MSNB	101	85	19
31	CNBC	87	97	-10	CORT	99	77	29
32	CORT	83	63	32	CNN	95	90	6
33	CNN	79	76	4	TVGC	87	98	-11
34	FOXN	71	48	48	FOXN	81	55	47
35	CMT	68	72	-6	HLN	71	71	0
36	HLN	62	59	5	TRAV	63	34	85
37	TRAV	60	31	94	CMT	61	65	-6
38	BRAV	50	42	19	BRAV	56	44	27
39	LMN	43	n/a	n/a	LMN	40	n/a	n/a
40	ODSY	35	18	94	ODSY	37	17	118
41	GAME	34	30	13	GAME	36	29	24
42	TDSN	29	n/a	n/a	TDSN	24	n/a	n/a
43	SOAP	16	n/a	n/a	SOAP	17	n/a	n/a
Source: Turner Entertainment Research from Nielsen Media Research data. Cable news networks are in boldface.

-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.

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