Monday, November 28, 2005

CNN's Anderson Cooper to be replaced by dancing monkeys

Disappointed with the mediocre viewership garnered by Anderson Cooper's show, "360°" currently running on the 10:00 p.m primetime slot, CNN has cancelled it effective immediately, intending it to be replaced by monkeys doing the tango (via Atrios).

Beginning in November, Anderson Cooper had replaced Aaron Brown, who, even though being one of mainstream media's more sober, thoughtful, fact-oriented and unbiased news anchors, was hampered by his uncompromising refusal to engage in audience-grabbing histrionics during his show. CNN therefore, was forced to cancel Aaron Brown's Newsnight, opting to replace it with Anderson Cooper, who had done such an incredible job of covering Hurricane Katrina's aftermath that audiences watching his live reporting of the tragedy were sure to be moved to tears, regardless of whether they knew who or what Katrina was.

However, with Cooper's
360° starting off on a dismal note, capturing only 73% of Newsnight's viewership, CNN is now rethinking it's strategy for the 10:00 p.m spot, after reaching the obvious conclusion that Anderson Cooper, even with his unauthenticated mane of white hair, boyish good looks and flamboyant personality was not enough to capture the attention of American audiences, most of whom have an attention span equivalent to that of a worker ant on PMS.

CNN initially came up with the idea of filling the post-Cooper primetime spot with a show featuring Fox News highlights of Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter giving Alan Colmes a wedgie on its show Hannity & Colmes, but this plan was scrapped after it was revealed that Fox News was coming up with its own show based on the same premise. Shortly thereafter, CNN announced that the 10:00 spot would be taken over by a news program involving a troupe of dancing monkeys with a news ticker in the background.

"Viewer polls have consistently revealed that there is a growing market for a news program that could potentially combine the sheer entertainment value of a dancing simian with coverage of current affairs", said CNN president Jonathan Klein. "We are glad to report that we have beaten Fox News in the race for such a show."

The Fox News Channel, in reply to CNN's newest addition to their primetime lineup, has announced that the O'Reilly Factor will now feature Bill O'Reilly in a no-holds-barred immigrant hunt in the Arizona desert, which will then be followed by hard-hitting coverage of O'Reilly skinning and roasting his human prey over an open fire while he pleasures himself lovingly to a picture of the American flag.

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