Eliot Spitzer, who wasted no time moving into former co-host Kathleen Parker’s office after she left their CNN show last week, has sent CNN back to the ratings cellar with his new program. Spitzer and Parker often clashed, never finding the necessary on-air chemistry that makes a co-hosted show a success. The former New York governor ran the show as if it were his own, often bulldozing Parker who didn’t have the backbone to stand up to her co-host.
While the show was never a credible challenger to Keith Olbermann and later Lawrence O’Donnell at MSNBC, it had gained enough traction to consistently finish in third place in the key A25-54 demographic. But during the first week of the reformatted and renamed show ‘In The Arena,’ the ratings for Spitzer plunged compared to the final week of Parker Spitzer. In the Arena averaged 124,000 viewers last week during the first four nights of the program in the A25-54 demo, compared to 138,000 for HLN’s Nancy Grace and finished in fourth place three of the four nights. The one night the program finished ahead of HLN it did so by just 1,000 viewers. That’s a 29% drop in audience from the week before, when Parker Spitzer averaged 174,000 viewers versus Grace’s 152,000; and beat her every night by a margin ranging from 5,000 to 59,000. This should be troubling news for CNN president Ken Jautz who was hoping for a bigger boost from the retooled program.
Viewers abandoned the program in droves. Normally the debut of a new program would increase the ratings for a few nights before settling into an average viewing pattern, but clearly just the opposite happened as viewers abandoned the program in droves with Spitzer clearly in charge. CNN thought that Spitzer was the answer to their 8 p.m. programming woes, but it is apparent that he is part of the problem. Yet CNN continues to avoid reality and instead coddles Spitzer, thinking that he can be rehabilitated and that they are responsible for doing so.
What Ken Jautz needs to do is to jettison Spitzer and replace him with someone like Dana Loesch or Erick Erickson who already contributes to the network. They shouldn’t have any trouble finding an unemployed liberal talker to provide an opposing point of view, if that’s what they want. It’s not easy admitting a mistake, but in the case of hiring Spitzer CNN committed a whopping error and they should just move on.
By Don Irvine, Canada Free Press
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Words I never thought I'd write: "You're right, Floyd"–about almost everything here.
Even better than finding another liberal talker would be to devote the hour to hard-hitting news at a time when Fox and MSNBC are relying on their own talkers. It won't happen, but it would be good change for the audience and probably for CNN.
Put him with a loose woman and he'll be happy, the younger and looser the better. Where's Brittany? Maybe he's thinking Miley now??
Big mouth not much brain ????
CNN should have known that Spitzer did not have the ability to think with the correct head! After all he is a Liberal!
Yes, he's a pig. Just like John Ensign, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, David Vitter, Ted Haggard, Glenn Murphy Jr., Roy Ashburn, Mark Sanford, Mike Duvall, Alan David Berlin, Bruce Barkley, Matthew Elliott, Robert McKee, Daniel Dean Thompson, Robert Allen, Richard Curtis, John Bryan, John David Roy Atchison, Donald Fleishman, Ronald C. Kline, Ted Klaudt, Joseph McDade, Patrick Lee McGuire, Joseph Monteleone Jr., and Armondo Tebano–to name just some of the Republicans implicated in sex scandals and/or sex crimes in just the past four years.
What's wrong with adding Letterman and yours to your list and as far as Parker goes she was one of you.You keep good track of the republicans but all your heroes Clinton,Gore,Edwards, blow job Barney.Spitzer got bald from rubbing his head betwen the legs of his girl friends and now CNN makes him a hero and you idolize him.
"now CNN makes him a hero and you idolize him"
Huh? You really need to start reading more carefully before you respond, Ed. Where in God's name do you get idolization out of "Yes, he's a pig"?
And there are a lot of them out there. My point–answering directly to Alexia's comment, in case you hadn't noticed–is that liberal certainly aren't the only ones.
The point is they were talking about Spitzer and you bring in 20 plus republicans and guess what, none of them were given good paying broadcasting gigs.This guy should be disgraced,is this how you feel about Charlie Sheen would you go out of your way to find conservatives that were fired for the lifestyle of Sheen.I know your going to say that some of those you mentioned are still in congress,now it's up to the people to get them out if they desire.My hero is Slick Willy having Monica under the desk while getting oral sex and then claiming he didn't think it was sex.Now he's a pillar of the world and the democrat party.
"This guy should be disgraced"
I don't disagree at all–and never have. So what really is your point?
And to repeat, I gave the GOP names only because Alexia blamed Spitzer's actions on his being a liberal–obviously a dumb claim.