First Crack Reported In New CNN Line-Up

CNN anchor Jake Tapper is being moved out of primetime and back to daytime following poor viewership, reports The NY Post.

“As part of a special lineup, Jake agreed to anchor the 9 pm hour through the midterm elections,” a spokesperson for CNN told Fox News Digital. “At the completion of that schedule, he’ll be returning to his award-winning program ‘The Lead.’ We will announce post-election plans for that time slot in the coming days.”

Tapper made his primetime debut on Oct. 11 with a splashy broadcast that included interviews with President Biden and movie star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Despite the big-named guests, “CNN Tonight with Jake Tapper” only averaged 854,000 viewers, which is a distant third behind Fox News’ “Hannity” with 2.6 million viewers and MSNBC’s “Alex Wagner Tonight” with 1.6 million viewers. Tapper’s audience substantially dipped since then.

Chris Licht, the new CNN honcho, reportedly wanted Tapper to be the “new face” of the network as the CEO has been vocal about his efforts to steer CNN towards nonpartisanship after years of hyper-liberal coverage during the Trump years. 

While CNN’s announced the primetime lineup shuffle would be set at least through the midterms, Licht reportedly wanted Tapper to be in the 9 pm ET time slot permanently. The time slot has been vacant ever since the December 2021 ousting of Chris Cuomo. 

In October, Tapper averaged only 691,000 viewers. Notably, his daytime program “The Lead,” which has been guest-hosted by other CNN anchors during his primetime stint, regularly had higher viewership than his 9 p.m. show and averaged 839,000 viewers last month.