Why Christiane Amanpour Is Bombing on ABC's 'This Week

Nine weeks since her hot launch as the host of one of the major Sunday political talk shows, Christiane Amanpour is tanking as the ratings for ABC's "This Week " have fallen dramatically to the point that the program occasionally drops to last place among the top three. So says Luisita Lopez Torregrosa, who the blog Woman Up at PoliticsDaily.com.

She writes:

"This Week," under host George Stephanopolous, at times hit No. 1, but usually held a strong second place in the Sunday morning talk show wars, after the perennial favorite, "Meet the Press" on NBC. But now "This Week" is winding up in third place more often than not on most Sundays. On Sunday, Sept. 19, for instance, the show not only plummeted to third place, behind "Meet the Press" and CBS's "Face the Nation," but received the lowest ratings in the 25-54 demographic in more than seven years.

For Amanpour, this has to be a tough uphill battle. It's a bit ironic that a celebrated international journalist with a wealth of experience in the major hot spots of the world could find defeat in a cold television studio, as far as one could get from the deserts of Arabia and the bloody streets of Sarajevo, where at one time she commanded the attention of a global audience.

Her going to ABC to anchor a prestige program was promoted for months. The hype made sense. Amanpour, as familiar a brand as there is in TV journalism, was leaving CNN and joining one of the media's most respected news programs. She was a woman, a journalist warrior, intrepid, fearless, and exotic. She was everywhere – in the Gulf War, reporting as scuds were incoming; in Bosnia and Serbia, wearing bullet-proof vests; in Iran, her head covered, but not her instincts for the jugular.

By all rights, by all measurements, she should've been an instant hit with "This Week." She's well prepared, obviously intelligent, a tough questioner, and she has scooped outstanding exclusives with the major movers and shakers of the moment. Her interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi showed tenacity and adversarial style; her interview with Queen Raina of Jordan displayed deep understanding of the Middle East and a warmth and sympathy she rarely allows to seep out.

In the studio at the Newseum in Washington, with her round-table talking heads, she's less sure-footed. She lacks the cozy manner and hail-fellow-well-met style of the master of Sunday shows, Tim Russert, or the friendly, accommodating manner of Russert's successor, David Gregory. There's nothing cozy about her. Seated at her table, one would not dare laugh or take a poke at a fellow guest or, least of all, at the host. Her guests change from week to week, with the possible exception of George Will, to whom she is far less deferential than her predecessors. In fact, she's not deferential at all to anyone. She's polite, attentive but hardly warm. She's not "one of the boys." And there's the rub.

Read more here.

Tom Sez:  This lengthy article can be summed up thusly:  Christiane Amanpour lacks personality.