CNN’s primetime plans won’t involve Jake Tapper.
The CNN veteran plans to return to his 4 p.m. program, “The Lead,” following the completion of a run at 9 p.m. after next week’s midterm elections, according to a network spokesman. The move raises complications for CNN CEO Chris Licht as he continues to seek a new programming strategy for a TV-news outlet that has been in flux for months.
CNN said it “will announce post-election plans” for 9 p.m. “in the coming days.”
By several accounts, Licht had settled on Tapper as the new anchor for CNN’s 9 p.m. hour, still one of the most-watched time slots in cable news. But the anchor has cautioned he was concerned about what the move might mean for his personal life and family, according to two people familiar with the matter. Tapper has long anchored the late-afternoon program, “The Lead” and moderates the Sunday-news show “State of the Union,” with Dana Bash. He had not committed to stay in primetime beyond next week.
But Tapper had been the most heavily promoted element of an “experimental” CNN primetime schedule put in place in the run-up to Election Night. Viewers have gotten a few familiar elements in the form of Erin Burnett at 7 p.m. and Anderson Cooper at 8. At 9, Tapper led a show that had him deliver a few riffs on the news and some newsmaker interviews with people ranging from government officials to sportscaster Rich Eisen and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. He was followed by two hours of a roundtable program led by Laura Coates and Alisyn Camerota that relied less on direct interviews and more on a shifting roundtable of commentators talking about the most prominent issues in the news cycle.
Keeping Tapper at 9 would have allowed CNN to potentially move anchors John Berman and Brianna Keilar into his slots in the afternoon. That pair is now without a regular assignment after CNN retooled its morning program with the new trio of Don Lemon, Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow. Lemon’s new A.M. assignment, which took him out of primetime, leaves CNN with three hours to fill without a figure more familiar to evening viewers.
More to come….
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