HLN Moves News Up, Taped Series to Primetime


HLNHLN announced on Thursday that it is making a slight adjustment to its weekday schedule, moving S.E. Cupp Unfiltered from 7 PM to 5 PM and Primetime Justice from 8 PM to 6 PM, both airing Monday through Thursday. The change will take effect Monday, December 4.

As a result of Primetime Justice no longer being in primetime, Ashleigh Banfield’s show will be renamed to Crime & Justice with Ashleigh Banfield. However, the new show will be extended to two hours, meaning that HLN is expanding its amount of live news. However, live news will end at 8 PM and the network will shift to airing CNN and HLN original series.

S.E. Cupp’s program has been struggling in the ratings since its inception, but having its lead-in be a news program, rather than the current original series, could help it gain viewers. As part of this transition, HLN will have news starting at 6 AM and go uninterrupted until 8 PM. This is part of HLN head Ken Jautz’s vision of HLN being “news-by-day and investigation by night,” per a staff memo.

HLN has had a bit of an identity crisis over the past few years. The oftentimes forgotten sister channel of CNN, it had a large focus on trial stories but then shifted away from that towards being a social media-driven cable news channel. However, that was largely unsuccessful so HLN has moved onto a new strategy of emphasizing news stories outside of the typical Acela corridor bubble while also keeping a focus on crime stories.

Read Jautz’s memo to staff:

Less than two years ago, we set out to re-brand HLN as news-by-day and investigation by night. A big part of that goal was to seamlessly go live from 6a – 8p ET. I’m pleased to share that beginning Monday, December 4, we are hitting that target. SE Cupp Unfiltered will now air Monday-Thursday from 5-6p, leading into a two-hour newly-titled, Crime & Justice with Ashleigh Banfield.

This new line-up creates a stronger flow into prime, which now hosts a robust library of highly-rated HLN and CNN Original programming, designed for us to win.

I want to thank you for your hard-work and flexibility over the past couple of years as we continue to position HLN for greater success.

Lastly, please hold-the-date of Thursday, December 7, for an ATL / LA Town Hall, and Wednesday, December 13 for NY. More details to come. I look forward to hearing from you on this and much more.

Wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Ken


About Tyler

Tyler is the chief media reporter for TKNN, with the news organization since its founding in November of 2010. He has previously served as chief political reporter and chief political anchor for TKNN.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *