AC360 Profile…
Under the banner of “‘Keeping Them Honest’ Segment Catching On”, the AP’s David Bauder profiles AC360. We also get a rare appearance from long time AC360 producer Charlie Moore.
If Anderson Cooper were anchoring today the same 10 p.m. CNN newscast slot he inherited in 2005, executive producer Charlie Moore has no doubt what it would be like. “Obsolete,” he said.
Instead, Cooper and Moore have fashioned a program that’s one part breaking news and one part “truth-telling” squad and it is building momentum. Through early June, “Anderson Cooper 360″ had an average audience of 859,000 people, or 20 percent above 2010, the Nielsen Co. said. Within the younger demographic on which CNN bases its ad sales, the increase is 46 percent. Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren has twice the audience at that time slot, but has gone down 16 percent in a year.
It’s impossible to tell how much Cooper’s improvement is due to a busy year in news – the Japanese tsunami, Arab uprisings, deadly tornadoes and Osama bin Laden killing – and how much it is because of a sharper focus provided by his “Keeping Them Honest” segments.
I would venture, and common sense suggests, the ratings boost is because of the former and not the latter. That being said, I will acknowledge that having stuck with the “Keeping Them Honest” segment for so long AC360 has carved out something of a niche for itself…a niche which kibitzers like Jon Stewart have noticed and appreciate.
June 14, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Newsnight was much better program. Maybe ‘The Whip,’ Segment 7 and ‘Tomorrow’s Papers’ just can’t fit in the cable universe… They just aren’t loud enough.