A ‘ NEW DAY’ IS UPON VIEWERS

Struggling CNN revamps morning show

It’s a New Day today, when CNN becomes the latest to revamp its morning news show, built around a new anchor team of Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and news reader Michaela Pereira.

“We are not reinventing the wheel,” says executive producer Jim Murphy, a veteran of early- hours TV. “It’s a morning news program.” And while “we have the resources to cover everything and be everywhere, all the time,” high jinks will take a back seat on the set: “You won’t see cooking and dancing and things like that.”

New Day, which replaces Starting Point from 6 to 9 a. m. ET, has a harder- news approach and will “be filled as often as we can with news and breaking developments,” he says.

That would help fulfill the mission of new CNN chief Jeff Zucker, a former Today producer who has made CNN’s morning show a priority as he tries to rebuild the network. So far, he has added a late- afternoon show, The Lead, with former ABC correspondent Jake Tapper, and non-breaking news series such as Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, whose second season will start in September.

Two new prime- time series are due Sunday: Crimes of the Century ( 9 ET/ PT), produced by Ridley Scott, and Inside Man ( 10 ET/ PT), in which documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock again infiltrates enterprises such as a California medicinal marijuana dispensary. Chicagoland, a documentary series co- produced by Robert Redford, is due next year.

Thanks to breaking news, CNN is up 6% in prime time this year, with an average of 656,000 viewers, but remains far behind Fox News ( flat at 1.9 million) and trails MSNBC ( 692,000, down 10% from last year).

The morning opportunity, Cuomo says, is presenting news “divorced from cynicism that you see from the partisanship mind- set. We don’t have to be locked into party positions.”

That has been the mantra at CNN, as right- leaning Fox News and leftist MSNBC cater to like- minded viewers, leaving CNN in the middle. Starting Point has been averaging 331,000 viewers this year, about 70,000 fewer than MSNBC’s Morning Joe but far behind the 1.1 million audience of Fox & Friends, which welcomes back Sarah Palin as a commentator today. All draw a fraction of the viewership at NBC’s Today and ABC’s Good Morning America, where Cuomo worked as news anchor until 2009.

Chemistry is key, so Cuomo and Bolduan have been hanging out off- camera. Cuomo was hired by CNN in January for New Day but has contributed to breaking- news reports. Bolduan was a D. C.- based CNN correspondent.

“We all know a lot of what you see on TV is not what happens offscreen,” Cuomo says. But “she makes me smile, and I’m hoping she has the same effect on everyone else.” NEW DAY CNN, TODAY, 6 A. M. ET

CNN

CNN Anchors Kate Bolduan, left, and Chris Cuomo, who will be joined by news reader Michaela Pereira, know the importance of chemistry and have been spending time together off- screen.