Thursday, June 23, 2005
Klein: May Take 18 Months to Boost Ratings
Source: Bloomberg News Cable News Network's Jonathan Klein, who took charge of the television network's U.S.
operations in November, said it may take 18 months before his changes pay off with a ratings improvement for the unit of Time Warner Inc.``Ratings never happen overnight,'' Klein, 47, said in an interview in his office overlooking Central Park in New York. ``It would be foolhardy to obsess over them. If you're a television executive and want to improve the numbers, you have to address the quality.''
CNN contributed about $797 million of the $42 billion in sales last year at Time Warner, the world's largest media company, according to Kagan Research, a Monterey, California- based company that estimates sales at networks. Klein has failed so far in boosting ratings. CNN averaged 610,000 U.S. primetime viewers in May, down from 727,000 a year earlier and less than half the 1.4 million that watched News Corp.'s Fox News channel.
Changes Klein has already made include canceling the political debate show ``Crossfire.'' He added an international news program at midday and hired producers from CBS and ABC to work with hosts Anderson Cooper and Paula Zahn.``It could be a very positive development to move back toward the hardcore news base,'' said Peter Jankovskis, director of research at Lisle, Illinois-based Oakbrook Investments LLC, which manages $1.3 billion including Time Warner shares.
# posted by ATN @ 10:55 AM 
