Fox News anchor Kirsten Powers is leaving the network and heading to CNN as a political analysis. Powers, who will continue as a contributor for USA Today [1], will join the network immediately.
She follows former Fox News anchor Alisyn Camerota who joined CNN in July [2]. Camerota had spent 16 years at Fox.
Besides Camerota, Powers will find another familiar face at her new network. Bob Beckel, who spent years as one of the co-hosts on Fox News’ afternoon program, “The Five,” joined CNN [2]in October 2015.
It looks like Jeff Zucker, President of CNN Worldwide and formerly with NBC, is pulling in some more-balanced talent. Zucker had recognized that CNN was “a little too liberal” in the past and appears to be rectifying that problem, telling the Wall Street Journal [3]:
“I think it was a legitimate criticism of CNN that it was a little too liberal,” Mr. Zucker said. “We have added many more middle-of-the-road conservative voices to an already strong stable of liberal voices. And I think that we are a much more-balanced network and, as a result, a much more inviting network to a segment of the audience that might not have otherwise been willing to come here.”
WSJ added:
After years of weak ratings, the network is nipping at the heels of Fox News, the longtime ratings leader in cable news, whose prime-time audience has grown 42% to 450,000 viewers, and is roughly doubling the audience of MSNBC, the weakest of the three major cable news channels. which is up 73% at 225,000.
The changes at CNN have been noticed so it will be interesting to see if Zucker is able to lure others from the Fox News stable of personalities.