Hard to say, but when all else fails, why not bring on media’s star player?
Charles Barkley has been a fixture as a TV sports commentator, and before that, an NBA MVP. Now he’s ready to try to bring some objectivity back to cable news, signing on as a primetime anchor for the network.
This follows the general trend of CNN trying to revamp and appeal to moderate voters. They want to be the most objective source amongst the big three cable tv news stations.
So far, those efforts haven’t been working. CNN ruffled some progressive feathers when they featured former President Donald Trump on their town hall. While they saw a temporary spike for that specific airing, they didn’t maintain any rising ratings.
CNN saw a 25% drop in ratings in May when comparing the same month last year. They even fell below Newsmax for the Friday primetime ratings.
The network thought new CEO Christ Licht would right the ship. He was a producer for late night talk shows, so his non political experience was appreciated. But after an internal staff revolt and a scathing Atlantic Magazine article, Licht was ousted after only eighteen months.
Barkley was clear headed about the task ahead, and was his usual forthright self when commenting on his upcoming CNN hosting gig, Outkick reports. “Apparently with this new talk show I’m jumping on the titanic.”
He’ll be co-hosting his new show with the venerable Gayle King, with a late fall 2023 start date.
The question is, can Barkley actually save the network? He certainly is a likable presence and has flirted with politics before. In 2010, he even “announced” his campaign for Alabama governor for the then far off year of 2014. He reversed course, but politics is clearly in his blood. He speaks the language, and as the primary election season heats up, he’s shown himself to be an elections guy. He said he crunched the numbers and voting groups to make an informed decision about not running.
And Barkley’s politics? Past statements indicate that they are straight down the middle. The guy has objective credibility. He was initially a Republican for quite some time, but then became independent. He’s made few political endorsements although he did appear at a rally for Democrat Doug Jones, who was running against Roy Moore in a special election for US Senate in Alabama in 2017. However, Moore got in hot water after admitting he had a sexual encounter with a 14 year old girl when he was 32. You can call that extenuating circumstances involving a unique candidate.
Barkley in 2018 said he wanted to “get rid of both the Republicans and the Democrats. They’re both awful. They fight all the time, like little kids. We got serious issues. We need serious people trying to solve them.”
Still, CNN is hovering around only half a million viewers. MSNBC and Fox News have over a million, putting the original cable TV news network in a distant third place for ratings.
But with Barkley’s charm and knowledge, he will certainly be able to hold viewers attention, and King’s stature shouldn’t hurt either. Still, it will be up to almost Barkley alone to save the dying the network. And that’s a lot of pressure.
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