Kathleen Parker Leaves CNN Show
img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-71690" title="kayparker" src="/files/wxrimport/2011-02/kayparker.jpg" alt="" width="205" height="105" /><Politico reports:
Kathleen Parker ended her rocky run as a television co-host today as CNN announced would be reformatting “Parker Spitzer” as an ensemble show with her co-host, Eliot Spitzer.
The announcement by CNN executive vice president Ken Jautz following months of rumblings on the gossip pages – especially the New York Post’s Page Six – that Spitzer felt Parker was holding him back, and Parker felt she was being run over by the man who, as governor, once famously described himself as a steamroller.
It also marks the first big significant bit of unraveling of the primetime lineup crafted by Jon Klein, the former president of CNN/U.S. who was fired in September after a long slide in CNN’s primetime ratings.
“Parker Spitzer” was an attempt to stanch that bleeding at 8 p.m., but from the outset it had trouble gaining traction in the ratings. When ratings picked up a bit recently when Parker was out sick, the rumblings in the gossip pages grew even louder.
“Kathleen Parker has decided to leave the program to focus on her writing, and we have decided to take the show in a new direction,” Jautz said in an announcement Friday afternoon.
The new direction, called “In the Arena,” will begin Monday and include Spitzer, E.D. Hill, Will Cain and “others within and outside the CNN family,” Jautz said.
“We have been pleased with how the 8pm hour has become a centerpiece of substantive, policy-oriented conversation, and we are looking forward to building on that with this new format,” he added.
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