As mentioned above, CNN's new Saturday morning premiered today.
First of All - Victor Blackwell says he wants to add more context to stories and showcase voices and places people are not familiar with. Interestingly, the desk says CNN Center on it, even though I don't think the new location is called that. (I think this set is mostly used for CNN International, right?)
After the longtime Smerconish, it's The Chris Wallace Show. The setup reminded me of The McLaughlin Group (Wallace actually said something like: I hate to play John McLaughlin here but you're right, you're wrong!). I'm just not sure the mix of a pretaped show with Chris Wallace, who seems pretty old and has a strong accent, is formula for success but we'll see.
And then there was The Amanpour Hour, also not live, and of course with an international focus. The music seems to keep the signature from her "Amanpour" show and the open has some elements of the design as well. One of the more interesting parts to me was "The Amanpour Archive," when they played a few minutes from a documentary Christiane Amanpour did for CNN in 2007 (which was relevant to today's Israel-Hamas war), followed by a clip from an interview she did in 1996. But otherwise, putting a two-hour block of taped programming every Saturday morning in this age of war of never-ending political news seems like an odd choice to me.