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CNN Kicks Out 'Connie Chung Tonight'
The popular anchor's talk show, already preempted for war coverage, won't be returning to the lineup when the normal schedule resumes.
Originally posted Wednesday March 26, 2003 01:00 PM EST
The war may be good for most of the cable news channels, but it's curtains for Connie Chung.
CNN's nightly news show "Connie Chung Tonight" had already been preempted by ongoing coverage of the war in Iraq, which has been a ratings boon for all news programming. And on Tuesday, the CNN anchor and longtime TV news figure received word that she was getting canned.
Her show will not return when the network's normal news schedule resumes, reports the New York Times. Chung has one year remaining on her $2 million-a-year contract, the paper notes.
"She was very shocked and extremely disappointed," a colleague tells the Times. "She did the show she was asked to do even though she argued that she wanted to do a different kind of show. But the management changed, and the new management said, 'We don't want that kind of show.' She was not given a chance to do something different for them."
The popular Chung, 56, had been hired by publishing veteran and former CNN chief Walter Isaacson as part of a broader effort to spice up the cable channel's faltering ratings in the race against Fox News Channel. The network's founder, Ted Turner, had recently called the interview show -- driven more by pop culture than hard news -- "just awful." It was Jim Nelson, Isaacson's successor, who gave Chung her walking papers, despite the show's rising ratings.
(CNN, like PEOPLE, is owned by AOL Time Warner.)
CNN's nightly news show "Connie Chung Tonight" had already been preempted by ongoing coverage of the war in Iraq, which has been a ratings boon for all news programming. And on Tuesday, the CNN anchor and longtime TV news figure received word that she was getting canned.
Her show will not return when the network's normal news schedule resumes, reports the New York Times. Chung has one year remaining on her $2 million-a-year contract, the paper notes.
"She was very shocked and extremely disappointed," a colleague tells the Times. "She did the show she was asked to do even though she argued that she wanted to do a different kind of show. But the management changed, and the new management said, 'We don't want that kind of show.' She was not given a chance to do something different for them."
The popular Chung, 56, had been hired by publishing veteran and former CNN chief Walter Isaacson as part of a broader effort to spice up the cable channel's faltering ratings in the race against Fox News Channel. The network's founder, Ted Turner, had recently called the interview show -- driven more by pop culture than hard news -- "just awful." It was Jim Nelson, Isaacson's successor, who gave Chung her walking papers, despite the show's rising ratings.
(CNN, like PEOPLE, is owned by AOL Time Warner.)
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