The Los Angeles Times‘ Scott Collins profiles CNN leading up to the 2012 political conventions, and gets some great quotes from Piers Morgan about the license he has been given:

“When there’s no news for sustained periods of time, CNN tends to deflate as a network,” Morgan said. “There’s a lot of internal debate going on about tone and opinion. I’ve been given more license to express my opinion. We need to be livelier, more provocative, more opinionated. I know we can be more opinionated without being partisan.”

As usual with the “what does CNN do now?” stories, executives there tout how CNN is the only non-partisan cable news channel, as if non-partisan political programming has been proven to be a thing people actually want to watch on cable news. Perhaps it will be, though it hasn’t proven to be a ratings draw so far.

Elsewhere, the New York Times notes that CNN will begin airing reruns of some of HBO’s documentaries. This isn’t exacly new, as CNN has been airing replays of HBO’s “24/7″ boxing series for over a year now.

That said, CNN will now get some of HBO’s excellent non-sports documentaries, which could hopefully help CNN in the ratings, and help Time Warner on the synergy front.