has taken the relatively new ‘
,” a second primetime hour for popular anchor
, off its primetime schedule for the foreseeable future, a spokeswoman for the network confirmed Friday.
Cooper, who recently signed a new deal with the Time Warner-owned cable-news outlet, is entrenched at the network, and is already the anchor of its 8 p.m. hour. Staffers on “AC360 Later,”
, are expected to be absorbed into other positions at the network.
Removal of the program from the lineup illustrates the ongoing experimentation at work behind CNN’s primetime schedule, which CNN Worldwide President
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has indicated is ripe for shakeup due to flailing viewership. CNN has been running documentaries at 10 p.m. on recent Thursday nights and tested a panel show, “The Point,” featuring ad man and TV personality Donny Deutsch last Spring.
While executives at the network were said to be pleased with the ratings for “AC360 Later,” which featured Cooper and a panel of different talking heads, the program never became a regular feature. It was often preempted during breaking news and in fact was not on the air during recent coverage of the death of statesman Nelson Mandela.
News of the programming decision
was reported previously by TVNewser
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