CraigViewer

Has CNN decided to not use Laura Coates as anchor of the 11pm EST hour of "CNN Tonight?" Just a few months ago, she was named host of the second hour, but I don't see her anchoring in that time slot regularly.

Some screenshots of the new KTLA 4pm weekday newscast that just debuted today. Much like how the 5pm broadcast used to originate on the side of the studio back on the old set in its first several months, the 4pm show does here in the new studio, as well.

Indeed, it is plausible that KTLA is temporarily installing Pedro as co-anchor on weekend mornings, who, again, in my opinion, is a better fit than Kolk in that position, until someone permanent that KTLA has likely hired joins the station around June of this year.

Well-deserved for Sam! Directly after the re-airing of her "My Life Story" package on the 5pm broadcast today, it was announced by Sandra Mitchell that Pedro Rivera will be Sam's co-anchor on the upcoming 4pm newscasts.

I am not sure what the ratings have been for "Korano" on KTLA at 4pm weekdays, but I suspect that they are lackluster. Although it is unoriginal to have yet another hour of a station news broadcast, in an effort to have a stronger lead-in to the station's late afternoon and evening programming, this move to have a 4pm newscast may be related to it in many ways. I guess we may never know, unless station management were to be interviewed though.

https://www.si.com/media/2023/02/10/charles-barkley-courted-cnn-primetime-news-show-report On its face, it may seem outlandish for CNN to use Charles Barkley in its weekday primetime lineup, but I feel that he has a strong ability (even over Gayle King) to be a ratings draw long term for the network, though.

Yes, very true. I must have misread, because I thought that I had heard originally weeks ago that Deanno was only going to be on the 11am show.

Both Alex and Olga were great in that 7am-10am time slot indeed. I wonder if Deanno will only be in the 7am block temporarily until Amber Lee, who was the weather forecaster on CBS2 in the 4:30am-7am slot, returns from maternity leave. With Deanno coming on board, that will be a total of seven weatherpersons (Evelyn Taft; Markina Brown and Alissa Carlson are the others) on KCAL News, which in my view is excessive for a region that is relatively uneventful from a weather perspective year-round in Southern California.

According to Paul Deanno, who was recently hired as a weather anchor by CBS Los Angeles, he will be making his KCAL News debut this coming Wednesday.

Oh, that's right. I stand corrected about Kolk. Based on what I've seen in recent months, Cortese and Chambers make for a good co-anchor duo. Karren Wynter, who I have also seen co-anchoring with Chambers over the past few weeks, would be a fantastic successor to Friel, as well. I suspect that it's the latter of what you were mentioning, with regard to Nexstar (or possibly KTLA) being frugal in tapping someone from in-house rather than hiring from the outside to fill these weekend morning anchor positions.

Interestingly, it turns out that Kolk and Lyster may not be paired with each other permanently on the weekend edition of the "KTLA Morning News" after all. I noticed when I turned on Channel 5 this morning that Pedro Rivera, who co-anchors with Cher Calvin at 5pm weekdays, was in Kolk's position with Lyster; meanwhile, Kolk slid over to handle entertainment anchor duties, while Megan Telles was back out in the field as a feature reporter, as she handled on the weekend morning broadcasts previously. Later, I came across Rivera tweeting that those changes will be in effect for the next couple of months, in that he will co-anchor with Calvin on Monday through Wednesdays, and him co-anchoring the weekend morning shows, as well. I enjoy this Lyster and Rivera co-anchor pairing, more than the Lyster-Kolk combination. To me, Kolk has never seemed fully comfortable being a news anchor and is more natural at what he was originally hired by KTLA to do in entertainment, which he was great at this morning.

As you may well know, Kasie Hunt was originally hired to primarily host her own political show on CNN+, which was essentially gone in the blink of an eye, as a result of the days-old length of the streaming network's existence. Following the demise of CNN+, CNN terminated a sizable number of the streaming network's employees. But due to Hunt's popularity and stature, I assume those were part of the decision-making from the powers that be to keep her at CNN. Now, she is left mainly offering political analysis; though I observed on a few occasions that she was seemingly auditioning for "CNN Tonight," before both Laura Coates and Alisyn Camerota were eventually named permanent anchors of the program. In any case, although the new CNN CEO, Chris Licht, has reduced the number of on-air political commentators at the network in recent weeks, it still certainly does feel weighty with political opinion. Besides ratings and entertainment (for some), there is no real redeeming value to feature panels with having both sides of the political spectrum arguing with one another, which fortunately they don't feature as often as was formerly the case under former head Jeff Zucker.

Yes. That would be redundant to Chris Wallace's interview series indeed. I can imagine, however, a scenario of Gayle King occasionally hosting interview specials with celebrities and newsmakers on CNN, like what the late Barbara Walters used to do on ABC, for example. On the subject of Wallace, while his series is interesting to watch, at times, I have never understood why CNN does not use him in a full time capacity covering politics. It seems more like his wheelhouse as opposed to a generalized interview show with high-profile guests. CNN is losing a golden opportunity by not using one of the best in the business at covering politics on a full-time basis, in my opinion.

I doubt that "The Challenge" will be returning ever again. Neither will Roggin's other program on NBC4, "Going Roggin," for that matter, which I noticed in my channel guide is no longer listed in airing at midnight Sundays (technically, Monday morning). That could be repurposed under a new title and, of course, a new host, but that seems unlikely though.

I am skeptical that a short five to 15 minute episode of "Overtime" from YouTube will help move the needle for CNN's ratings. Regardless of one's opinions of Bill Maher, "Overtime" is just less interesting and compelling than a full episode of his "Real Time" series on HBO. This all comes across to me as CNN pretty much throwing spaghetti at the wall.