NEW CNN NEWS - News at MTV speed

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Current News : One Thread

[OG Comment: Thank God for Fox]

Revamped Headline News is CNN at MTV speed

By Phil Kloer / Cox News Service 08-07-01

ATLANTA -- Dude! Where's my news?

On the new, happenin' Headline News, you get CNN at MTV speed, with a smattering of youthful insouciance. When much anticipated new anchor Andrea Thompson, the former "NYPD Blue" actress, teased a story about a shooting, it went like this: "How do you know the pre-wedding bash is getting a little rowdy? The bride gets shot in the stomach." She also introduced vibrant new cornrowed entertainment reporter Alisha Davis as "hipper than hip."

Anchor Chuck Roberts led into a story about America West Airlines putting two kids on the wrong flight by referencing Britney Spears: "Oops, they did it again."

And when Headline offered a little factoid at the bottom of the screen about a guy who made a world-record burger, the header was "Bite This!"

Welcome to the Chillin' News Network.

A totally revamped Headline News, the long neglected stepchild of CNN, was launched Monday after months of toil behind the scenes, and it's all about taking care of busy-ness. At any given time, there are at least five things going on. The anchor or story footage, shrunk to the upper right quarter of the screen; a "data box" on the left, bristling with factoids-lets; and a wide band across the bottom that includes a changing weather map, stock quotes, sports scores and the aforementioned "Headlines," home of the 4-ton hamburger.

It feels like an interactive Web site. Teya Ryan, executive vice president of Headline who masterminded the makeover, says the info overload comes partly from the Internet but more from CNN/fn, the numbers-heavy financial news network where she used to work.

"I do think it's a network for people who are used to taking in a lot of information," a sleep-deprived Ryan said Monday. "Everybody talks about a younger audience, but our audience is 50 to 54. I honestly programmed this network for baby boomers."

It's still CNN, of course. Monday was a slow news day, making it a good day to unveil a re-jiggered channel, but there were stories about tropical depression Barry, human cloning, unemployment figures, Martin Luther King III and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference convention, Chandra Levy and Mideast violence.

The basic purpose of Headline hasn't changed in the revamp, just everything else. It still is divided into 15-minute chunks, repeating some stories as often as four times an hour for viewers who want to dip in and out (average staying time is 11 minutes). It's designed to be superficial, to wallow in the shallow and embrace its inner instant.

And actually, the zippy new Headline fits better with that mission than the old did. A quick word here about the old Headline News: zzzzzzzz. Never much of a player, it was losing viewers, averaging a piddling 141,000 homes on in 2000, down from 189,000 in 1996.

The arrival of Thompson, with 11 months experience in local TV news after years as an actress, got more advance attention than the makeover. She bobbled a bit early in her debut, but recovered.

The new set, which was recently built on the second floor of the CNN Center above the Turner Store, is sleek and beautiful, all light wood and large maps etched on glass panels behind the anchors. The set is a circle, and every 15 minutes the anchors and several correspondents do a whip-around, tossing to each other like a baseball infield warming up.

It's also practically a TV version of Napster. Music abounds: big, New Age-y vocal fanfares to introduce segments, brass playing in the background during news reports, snippets of pop music like Steve Miller's "Fly Like an Eagle" (to punch up a story on a hot-air balloon flight).

Finally, note to Headline: Scrolling "Don't Touch That Dial" onscreen as you go to commercial is totally lost on the pierced-eyebrow demographic. TV sets don't even have dials any more -- it's all about the remote. Oh, wait. There was another on-air promo that said "Drop That Clicker!" That's better.

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001


Moderation questions? read the FAQ