CNN

As we noted, CNBC anchors remembered their friend and colleague Mark Haines yesterday. Haines died unexpectedly a year ago.

On her CNN program, Erin Burnett, who spent more than five years next to Haines at the CNBC anchor desk, delivered a heartfelt remembrance of her former colleague:

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Late last year, you may recall that a CNN International crew, along with actor Christian Bale, were roughed up by Chinese police after trying to visit detained Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng. Earlier this month, while reporting on his escape from custody and subsequent discussions with U.S. officials, CNN ended up being blocked in China.

The network’s dedication to the story is paying off, as it has secured the first TV interview with Chen since arrived in the U.S. last week. Anderson Cooper interviewed Chen this afternoon (pictured), and the story will run tonight on “AC360″ and on CNN International.

Today on mediabistro.com, we ask Lola Ogunnaike, a contributor for the “Today” show and MSNBC, “So What Do You Do?” Ogunnaike talks about her experience as a freelance journalist and former CNN correspondent, as well as how she got into television in the first place:

How would you describe your time on American Morning at CNN?
The hours were absolutely brutal. You hear about people like the Matt Lauers and Katie Courics of the world making astronomical amounts of money — they completely deserve it because waking up at the crack of dawn is no joke. The show would begin at 6 a.m. and end at 9 a.m., which means we often had to be in the building by 4-4:30 a.m. And if you were turning a story for the next day, you essentially work anywhere between 12-15 hours. With that said, it was a thrilling experience and I met some of the funniest and most entertaining people that I’ve ever had the chance to work with. CNN was definitely a blast.

How much would you credit your 2006 suspension from The New York Times for jump-starting your TV career? Read more

“There will be changes.”

It was broadcast upfront week, and amid the chaos and the talk of CBS’s schedule and the fate of “30 Rock,” the discussion had shifted to CNN. A media buyer for one of the top firms told me that in a conversation with a senior executive at Time Warner, there was an expectation that CNN would be tweaking its programming, an effort to combat ratings fatigue.

In a terse statement earlier this month, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said that he and others at the company were “clearly not satisfied” with CNN’s situation, and promised that action would be taken to rectify it.

That situation–at least in the primetime ratings–is grim. Last week the channel had its lowest weekly primetime in total viewers in at least 20 years, and it did not do much better in the adults 25-54 demo that cable news actually sells against. May sweeps and the NBA playoffs probably had something to do with that, but sweeps aren’t enough to explain a 20-year low. Unless an unexpected news event happens, it will likely end up being another rough month for CNN ratings-wise when the final numbers come in next Tuesday.

“Obviously this is an indictment of their lineup, it is not working,” says Brad Adgate, senior VP of research at Horizon Media.

Adgate, who used to work in the research department at CNN and Turner,  says that for a political year ratings across cable news have been relatively flat. CNN saw ratings boosts earlier this year, when there were debates and primaries, but since then things have quieted down. TV viewers that are interested in the day-to-day political scuffles are almost by definition going to be partisan, and there are cable news channels tailored just for them.

“It was the first news network, it does have a great reputation and a great global brand name for the casual news viewer, but those aren’t the people who are going to watch debt news on a regular basis,” Adgate says. “The news is still the star at CNN and it isn’t necessarily the star at other cable news networks.”

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CNN’s Wolf Blitzer will interview with Afghan President Hamid Karzai this afternoon. Karzai is in the U.S. to attend the NATO Summit in Chicago.

Karzai met with President Obama yesterday (pictured). NATO countries are expected to sign off today on Obama’s exit strategy from Afghanistan, which calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2014.

The interview is slated to air today in the 5pmET hour of “The Situation Room,” which Blitzer is anchoring from Chicago. It is Karzai’s only scheduled interview during his trip to the U.S.

File this story under “weird.” Former CNN political director and CNN Headline News president Bob Furnad was busted by a local CBS affiliate in Atlanta placing dog poop in his neighbor’s mailbox. Apparently there was some sort of ongoing feud between Furnad and his neighbors, who caught him, er, brown-handed on surveillance footage.

WATCH:

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What a week for anomalous ratings days! Earlier this week, we noted that CNN’s Piers Morgan saw only 39,000 demo viewers on Tuesday night, way down from his average, and a record-low for CNN. Last night, Morgan was back up to a more typical 175,000 demo viewers, but the drama was on MSNBC and Fox News.

At 10 PM, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell topped FNC’s Greta Van Susteren in the demo. It wasn’t by that much, but it was a clean win for O’Donnell, and clean ratings wins over Fox News (when there aren’t any big news events or specials) are an unusual thing.

O’Donnell averaged 327,000 demo viewers, to Van Susteren’s 309,000. In total viewers, Van Susteren still handily topped O’Donnell by around 500,000 viewers, but a demo win is still a win. CNN’s Anderson Cooper averaged 143,000 demo viewers, about average for him.

This weekend on “CNN Presents,” correspondent Drew Griffin will investigate extremely controversial medical clinics that administer unproven stem cell therapies to patients. The special, CNN’s “Selling a Miracle,” will also speak to Dr. Sanjay Gupta and others who voice concerns about the treatments, which have not been peer-reviewed, while also giving viewers a more accurate look at the current state of stem cell research.

CNN could have used Gupta’s skepticism last week, when the network effectively promoted a similarly controversial stem cell therapy on “Piers Morgan Tonight” and “Starting Point.”

The guest on both shows was actress Suzanne Somers, who claims that a miraculous stem cell therapy–with no side effects (always a red flag in medicine)–effectively regrew her breasts after she underwent a lumpectomy. On “Starting Point,” Somers also advocates that cancer patients forgo chemotherapy for testosterone therapy, which has been proven to be ineffective in battling cancer:

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Last night was a typical, boring Tuesday, with little earth-shattering news to drive TV viewers to cable news. It was also May sweeps, with the season finale of “NCIS: LA,” “America’s Got Talent” on NBC and “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC drawing an astonishing 39 million viewers between them at 9 PM.

Unfortunately for CNN, “Piers Morgan Tonight” was the apparent victim of the busy night, drawing only 39,000 viewers 25-54 at 9 PM. To say those ratings are anomalous would be something of an understatement. That is the lowest 9 PM weekday demo rating for CNN since at least 1997. While the ratings were an outlier, it was a fairly normal edition of “PMT,” with Morgan hosting. Guests included Jane Lynch and “The man with the golden voice” Ted Williams.

“PMT” drew 284,000 total viewers, which was down from a typical weekday, but not a record-breaking low.

“PMT”s lead-in and lead-out, “AC360,” drew around 90,000 demo viewers at both 8 and 10 PM, also down from a typical weekday this year.

CNN’s “Erin Burnett Outfront,” which is still trying to gain traction among viewers, is trying to spice up the show by adding a recurring segment featuring a “Political Strike Team” (Note: not to be confused with The Best Political Team on Television, which is different, although some people are on both TBPOT and “Strike Team,” if that makes any sense).

What is the Political Strike Team? “The best political reporters and independent political observers that OutFront has put together, that will weigh in on issues that matter to undecided, independent and swing voters,” CNN says. Read about all the members of the team here.

“OutFront” has had an “Economic Strike Team” since shortly after launching, though the new group is obviously meant to be election-centric in this election year.

That said, we noticed a key flaw in the first question posed to the team. It asked the team about President Obama’s visit to “The View,” which is “part of a week-long appeal to women, including a commencement speech at Barnard College. Will it work or backfire?”

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