Turner Broadcasting CEO Phil Kent has a good idea of that CNN’s problems have been and what new CNN president Jeff Zucker is doing to fix them. As Zucker’s boss at Time Warner, Kent is a big part of the conversations happening there behind the scenes.

The cover story for this week’s issue of Broadcasting & Cable has Andrea Morabito interviewing Kent (subscription required), with a good deal of the conversation focusing on the cable news channel. Kent seemed most excited about the soon-to-launch morning show, which will be co-anchored by Chris Cuomo, but he also tells Morabito “I think we need at least one new primetime show.”

What kind of timeline did you and Jeff talk about for making changes, and for seeing results?

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The day he was announced as CNN’s new worldwide president, Jeff Zucker and his new boss Turner Broadcasting chairman Phil Kent held a conference call with reporters.

Kent, never one to mince words, said that one of the reasons Time Warner hired Zucker was his experience in morning news.

“It is not lost on any of us that occasionally HLN’s morning show beats CNN’s morning show,” Kent said. “One of the hundred other reasons I wanted [Zucker] was because of his experience in the morning.”

Now, barely a week into his new job, Zucker is planning to shake up the mornings, replacing “Starting Point” with a new program anchored by Chris Cuomo, and possibly another anchor such as Erin Burnett. It is far too soon to speculate about what the new program will look like, but it is worth noting that Cuomo and Burnett have extensive experience in the mornings, although not exactly on the most-watched programs.

Zucker, of course, changed the morning show game when he rose to the top of “Today” in 1992, at the age of 26.

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Soon-to-be CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker and his new boss, Turner Broadcasting chairman Phil Kent, held a conference call with reporters this morning to talk about Zucker’s hire. There were plenty of talking points, but reading between the lines, it was clear that Zucker had a vision–at least a general one–of what he thought CNN has to do to remain relevant in a competitive, multi-platform news environment.

“I think our competition today is anybody that competes for eyeballs and attention and produces non-fiction programming,” Zucker said. “News is about more than politics and war, we need to broaden that definition of what news is, while maintaining the standards of CNN’s journalistic excellence.”

“We have had shows about sports, fashion and technology, and some of that is going to be revisited,” Kent said. “It is all news that people need and are interested about. There is a lot of subject matter that we probably don’t give enough attention to.”

CNN is beginning to expand to other forms of non-fiction programming on the weekends with new shows next year hosted by Anthony Bourdain and Morgan Spurlock. Zucker said that “it wouldn’t be fair” to any current hosts or shows to discuss what he had planned for them.

That said, it seemed clear that two areas Zucker wanted to focus on are CNN’s primetime lineup and its morning program, where he has real-world experience having taken NBC’s “Today” show to #1 in the ’90s, where it stayed for 16 years.

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Time Warner has made it official: former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker will be the new president of CNN Worldwide, replacing outgoing president Jim Walton.

Zucker will take the reins in January. We gave the rundown on Zucker’s background earlier this week. The short version: he was a news prodigy at NBC, fumbled when he took over entertainment, but had success with the company’s cable channels as CEO. He left when Comcast acquired NBCU last year, and is most recently the EP of syndicated talker “Katie.”

Zucker will be based in New York, a stark departure for the channel, which has its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

In a note to CNN staffers, Turner Broadcasting chairman Phil Kent wrote:

“I picked Jeff because of his extensive experience and track record in broadcast and cable news, his passion for the news business and his strong belief, which I share, that the best days of CNN lie ahead if we create news programming on each of our platforms that delivers on the core values of the CNN brand: accuracy, immediacy and offering all perspectives through great reporting, analysis, explanation and presentation.”

Kent’s memo to staff is after the jump, along with CNN’s official announcement.
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Earlier we noted how former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker is preparing to leave the syndicated talker “Katie,” which he currently EPs.

We also noted that Zucker is on the (public) short list of names to replace Jim Walton at CNN Worldwide. In the LA Times, Joe Flint lays out why that probably won’t happen. There are  a lot of reasons why Zucker is unlikely to get the CNN job, but a significant one is that the job might simply be too small for the executive:

Currently, CNN is part of Turner Broadcasting, which is run by Phil Kent, a low-key executive who avoids the spotlight as much as Zucker embraces it. If Zucker is running CNN, he would in theory report to Kent. Would that fly with Zucker? In his old life he reported to the chief executive of General Electric. If he took CNN he might want a direct line to Time Warner Chief Jeff Bewkes. See, this is starting to get complicated.

BREAKING: CNN Worldwide president Jim Walton says he will step down from his post at the end of the year. Walton oversees all of CNN’s properties, including CNN/U.S., CNN International, HLN and CNN Digital.

In a note to staff this morning, Walton said that the network needs some fresh thinking at the top.

“CNN needs new thinking.  That starts with a new leader who brings a different perspective, different experiences and a new plan, one who will build on our great foundation and will commit to seeing it through.  And I’m ready for a change.  I have interests to explore and I want to give myself time to do it.”

Walton’s full note is after the jump.

CNN has faced ratings struggles over the last few years at its flagship network, CNN/U.S.. While its digital and international units have grown, CNN/U.S. has not seen the same success.

Turner Broadcasting chairman Phil Kent will lead the charge for Walton’s successor.

In a statement, Kent said:

“Jim is the leader we all aspire to be: Smart and steady, tough and fair, business-savvy and respected by his team, and with a track record of great judgment when it matters most.  His vision has modernized and globalized our legacy news brand, enhanced CNN’s journalistic standing, positioned it at the forefront of multi-platform branded news content and challenged the organization to think bigger, reach further and do better.  I am honored to work alongside him and proud to call him my friend.

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said in a statement:

When Jim Walton assumed the presidency of CNN in 2003, it was underperforming and earnings were in serious decline.  Since then, he and CNN have tripled earnings, doubled margin and delivered annual growth of 15 percent.  In his nearly 31 years of uninterrupted and distinguished service to CNN, Jim has been instrumental in growing the business into the financial powerhouse it has become, while establishing the brand as the worldwide leader for television news.  I respect him personally and professionally and support the decision he and Phil Kent have reached.

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Turner Broadcasting CEO Phil Kent spoke at the Nomura U.S. Media & Telecom Summit today, and he spent a good deal of his time answering questions about CNN, according to B&C’s Jon Lafayette.

Kent said that he is “very unhappy” with the network’s ratings situation, and laid some groundwork for changes ahead. As we noted last week, don’t expect Erin Burnett, Piers Morgan or Anderson Cooper to see any major changes to their shows, but there will be changes coming, beyond the recently announced additions of John Berman and Anthony Bourdain.

The self-inflicted problems stems from the fact that “we haven’t put the best shows on the air,” he said.

Kent said CNN’s current primetime lineup still has “very high potential.” He called Anderson Cooper a television news star who “at this moment is not getting a star’s ratings and that’s because of lead-ins.”
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Of the rest of CNN’s lineup, “we have some other shows that probably need to be replaced. This is an execution issue and to me, this is TV 101.”

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2012 is shaping up to be a weird year in the Nielsen ratings. Nickelodeon, Fox, The CW and a number of other channels are crying foul over what they say is clearly incorrect ratings data coming from Nielsen (not surprisingly, they are complaining about ratings declines).

Despite it being an election year, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC were all down significantly from 2011, with FNC seeing its lowest ratings since 2008 and CNN since at least 1991.

What’s the deal? Here are a few thoughts.

People Are Sick Of Politics For a While: Fox News saw its lowest primetime numbers since July, 2008, right before the big election. Weird, right? Well, in both cases, with the GOP and Democratic nominations secured, cable news shifted to general election horse race coverage. Horse race coverage has limited mass appeal, particularly after a long, drawn-out primary process, and viewers–even regular viewers–seemed inclined to tune it out. It happened in 2008 across all of the cablers, and it appears to be happening again now. Even Turner Broadcasting CEO Phil Kent says that politics has been “pretty boring to people,” this year, according to B&C. Your average American probably doesn’t care about what the latest poll numbers mean, and won’t be making an effort to tune in and find out. Sorry.

May Sweeps and a Lack of News: May 2011 was a BIG news month. Bin Laden, Joplin, Libya, Casey Anthony. Lots of news happened that month. May 2012 had some interesting news as well, but nothing of the scope or scale of any of those mentioned. May also brings May sweeps, when the broadcasters pull out their big guns to try and draw viewers in primetime. Both of those things likely factored into the slow month. While the partisan programming on MSNBC and Fox News is more resistant to a slow news month than CNN’s programming is, all of the networks get a big boost when big news happens. In May 2012, there just wasn’t that major news story that gets your average (read: non-cable news) viewer to tune in over “Dancing With the Stars.”

It’s Nielsen’s Fault!: This isn’t news to anyone who works in TV, but the networks don’t like Nielsen. Fox News doesn’t like Nielsen, CNN doesn’t like Nielsen, USA doesn’t like Nielsen, CBS doesn’t like Nielsen, no one likes Nielsen. Some might defend Nielsen, but they don’t like Nielsen. In the five-plus years that I have been a media reporter, I have not met a single TV executive who believed that Nielsen’s numbers were truly accurate.

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Photo Courtesy: Newhouse School

Yesterday the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University held its fifth annual Mirror Awards ceremony, honoring the best in media reporting. You can read about the winners from FishbowlNY, here.

MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski hosted the event, which also presented special awards to Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.

Scarborough opened up the event with a friendly jab at his former executive producer, Chris Licht, who was in the audience.

“Our connection to the Newhouse school is through our executive producer Chris Licht. We have found working with him through the years that not only do you teach your students how to get out there in the media world and do it better than anyone else, but we have to say the trait that you instill that really means more than any other is loyalty. Sticking together through the years no matter what. How is CBS Chris?”

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was to present the award to Roberts. The Comcast CEO was unable to attend as he was in Switzerland securing the rights to the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 Olympics for NBC. Bewkes took the opportunity to poke fun at his business partner… and now competitor:

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Reinhardt (Credit: CNN)

Former CNN president Burt Reinhardt, who led the network through a phase of enormous growth from 1983-1990, has passed away at age 91. Reinhardt was one of the network’s first employees, joining in 1979, as Ted Turner prepared the effort to launch the world’s first 24-hour news channel.

Reinhardt got his start as a combat photographer during World War II, and served as an editor of the newsreels that used to run before feature films. He got his start in TV news at UPI, where he supervised the wire agency’s TV operations.

“Burt was a colleague and also a friend. More than anyone, he built the foundation for CNN’s global leadership in news,” said Phil Kent, Chairman and CEO, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. in a statement. “He was an innovator and a mentor to many. He was one of the finest people I have known, and his loss is felt by all of his friends and colleagues across the world.”

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