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IPFS News Link • Entertainment: Television (TV)

Jeff Zucker’s CNN morning show hits new low

• http://pagesix.com, By Richard Johnson
 Nielsen ratings show “New Day” — hosted by Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and Michaela Pereira — pulled an average of 389,000 viewers in its first full month in July, but declined steadily to just 255,000 viewers by December.

On Monday, “New Day” hit rock bottom in the 7-8 a.m. hour with 142,000 total viewers — only 21,000 of them in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic important to advertisers. Both numbers are all-time lows.

“It’s too much like everything else,” Marc Berman of TV Media Insights told me. “It’s not giving the viewers anything they aren’t getting elsewhere.”

Zucker had great success running the “Today” show. “He’s very experienced with morning. That’s his comfort zone,” Berman said. “But, as he has learned, it’s not easy.”

He assembled three attractive hosts who seem to like each other and have chemistry.

“They are talented broadcasters. The problem is, it’s the same old formula,” said a network exec, echoing Berman’s sentiment.


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