CNN is planning its own political game show, with Anderson Cooper to host the first episode on Presidents' Day and further shows to go into production if the first one succeeds.
The network is currently blocking and testing the show this week in its New York studios,
according to TVNewser, which said the program will be a quiz show based on presidential politics.
Last month, while the news about the Sony email hacking incidents were unfolding, one of the stories emerging included CNN Worldwide chief Jeff Zucker asking a Sony TV executive if the company would consider going into a production of "Political Jeopardy!" for CNN.
In the email, sent by Sony Pictures Television Distribution President John Weiser to his boss, Steve Mosko, Weiser says that he "met with Zucker this week and he asked if we would consider doing political jeopardy show for CNN. I'm guessing it's a non-starter but wanted to ask you how to respond to him."
A CNN insider told TVNewser that the network frequently bats around ideas "and this is one of many, and it's a great one."
The network wouldn't be the first news channel to offer such a game show, though,
reports Mediaite, which noted MSNBC's Steve Kornacki hosts his own version on his morning show on the weekends.
His game,
"Up Against the Clock," has panelists in front of Jeopardy-style booths, where they play political trivia.
But the concept of news-as-game-show entertainment isn't sitting well with some critics, including
The Baffler's Jason Linkins:
"For a show launched and governed by the assumption that the cable news model needed more thoughtfulness, more listening, and less cheapness, this self-congratulatory segment produces a crashing off-note, veering perilously close to the sort of Beltway-insider grotesquerie that Kornacki and his MSNBC labelmates all claim to eschew," writes Linkins. "Its main aim seems to be to prove who's with it and hip — and the answer, of course, is that everyone is brilliant."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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