CNN has once again overhauled its programming amid slumped ratings, leaving CNN This Morning’s Poppy Harlow to negotiate her future with the network.
On Monday, CNN CEO Mark Thompson reportedly told staffers the network “will no longer produce morning programming in New York and will be disbanding the team that currently produces CNN This Morning in that city.”
Current CNN This Morning hosts Phil Mattingly and Poppy Harlow were told Thompson would find them new roles. Mattingly will reportedly stay in New York under a new role, but Harlow is in talks with CNN.
“It’s not going well over at CNN,” Megyn Kelly, host of The Megyn Kelly Show, said in reaction to the shake-up. “The cursed morning show over there, which is just failure after failure, has failed again. And now the CNN This Morning show with Poppy Harlow and Phil Mattingly is going away. … It’s just the rearranging of the deck chairs, that’s their only plan.”
The latest shake-up comes after former CNN This Morning host Don Lemon was fired last April after making controversial comments about GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, saying she was “past her prime” in his reaction to her announcing a bid for the White House. Lemon had moved from a prime-time slot to CNN This Morning in late 2022.
Former CNN This Morning host Kaitlan Collins moved to the weekday 9 p.m. Eastern prime-time slot last summer.
The shake-ups did little to help CNN top its competition, specifically Fox News and MSNBC. At the end of 2023, the network notched its lowest total viewers since 2014 and its lowest audience ever in the 25-54 age demographic.
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In its place, CNN will extend Kasie Hunt’s show Early Start from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. and reportedly take on the CNN This Morning title. CNN News Central will move up to air from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. while Jim Acosta will move from a weekend show to assume the 10 a.m. weekday slot with Pamela Brown.
“No longer marooned on the weekends?” Kelly commented on Acosta’s move to weekday programming. “He’s is moving to the 10 a.m. and being rewarded. I mean, really, that’s a reward for his rabid anti-Trump coverage. … You just keep lying about Trump and you keep moving up the ladder.”
