Ex-CBS Exec to Head CNN
By John M. Higgins -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/22/2004 12:13:00 PM
For the second time in around one year, Cable News Network has reached outside for a new president, tapping former CBS News executive Jonathan Klein to oversee programming.
As president of CNN’s U.S. operations, Klein replaces Princell Hair, a former TV station news executive who was named general manager a year ago.
Hair remains at the network a program and talent development executive. Klein was most recently founder and CEO of The FeedRoom Inc., a broadband news and streaming site.
Klein will report to CNN News Group President Jim Walton, but will be based in New York.
Walton insists that the shuffle shouldn’t be read as a sign of trouble. “I’m not kidding when I say the place is having a record year financially,” he says. “This place isn’t broken.” But he acknowledged that Klein was tapped to focus on prime time. “The mission is to make sure that the range of stories that we're covering, and the approach that we take to covering them, especially in prime time, resonates with that audience,” says Klein.
Klein’s strongest background is in news magazines. Toward the end of his 16 years at CBS, he was executive vp for prime time programming at the news division, overseeing 60 Minutes and 48 Hours.
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