Steve Kardian is regular guest on"Issues" with Jane Velez-Mitchell on CNN HLN at 7:00pm (Est.) She's AWESOME! Kardian says.
March 3, 2009
A Fill-In on Cable News Is Thrust Into Host’s Chair
By BRIAN STELTER
Jane Velez-Mitchell is a true-crime author, a television talking head, a lesbian, an animal activist, a recovering alcoholic and a vegan. She was until recently a glorified freelancer for Headline News, the sister channel of CNN.
Now she is one of Headline News’s nightly hosts — and her 7 o’clock show is setting ratings records for the network.
Last October, with only nine hours’ notice, Ms. Velez-Mitchell joined the ranks of evening cable news anchors. At home in Los Angeles, drinking her first cup of coffee on Oct. 17, a Friday, Ms. Velez-Mitchell, who had substituted for years for Nancy Grace, the host of her own news show, was jolted by a call. It was from Ken Jautz, the executive vice president of CNN Worldwide in charge of Headline News, who asked her to host the channel’s 7 p.m. hour from Los Angeles that night, then hop on a plane to New York and start a five-nights-a-week shift on Monday. He told her that slot’s program would be called “Issues.”
“Great,” she jokingly recalled responding, “because I have a lot of issues.”
The sudden assignment became a surprising success for Headline News, which was formally renamed HLN in January. Ms. Velez-Mitchell’s hour of water-cooler talk, delivered with heavy doses of opinion, reached an average of 596,000 viewers in February, up 74 percent from the slot’s average for the same month last year, when the conservative commentator Glenn Beck was the host.
Mr. Jautz’s call came the day after Mr. Beck signed a contract with the Fox News Channel. Once it was clear that Mr. Beck wouldn’t be at HLN on Friday, Mr. Jautz scrambled to create a new show in less than 24 hours. Ms. Velez-Mitchell had been on a short list of possible anchors as he considered adding another prime-time show, but neither expected it to happen in a day.
HLN traffics in news headlines during the day, but Mr. Jautz has differentiated the network from CNN by hiring night-time hosts who have what he calls the three P’s: passion, personality and a point of view. The strategy started four years ago with Ms. Grace’s 8 p.m. program about crime and justice; Mr. Beck was added as the 7 p.m. host in mid-2006. The pair helped HLN achieve its record-high ratings in prime time, allowing the network to charge more for advertising.
While Mr. Beck left the network last fall, it did not lose viewers. To the surprise of some at Time Warner, Ms. Velez-Mitchell’s show has received higher ratings than his did.
In February “Issues” reached an average of 241,000 viewers among the 25- to 54-year-old demographic segment of the audience, compared with the 157,000 that Mr. Beck averaged in the same month last year. Mr. Jautz said that the ratings were a “validation of a strategy.”
“The advantage of having two fully distributed TV networks is that we can niche-target,” he said, adding that the election propelled CNN to its best year ever in 2008, even as HLN drew its highest ratings ever.
For the past three months Ms. Grace’s tabloid-oriented show has outdrawn Campbell Brown on CNN and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC programs among 25-to-54-year-olds. (Now hosting the 5 p.m. hour on Fox News, Mr. Beck drew a bigger audience than any of the HLN shows did in February.)
On “Issues,” Ms. Velez-Mitchell and commentators cover a wide swath of the day’s stories, be they a missing child, a plane crash or a debate about the Proposition 8 legislation in California. Still an interim host, Ms. Velez-Mitchell is in long-term contract negotiations with CNN.
In an interview in her office at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan last week, her attitude about the abruptness of her anchor assignment bordered on nonchalance. “In Hollywood, they say good news finds you,” she said, by way of explaining her approach.
In a medium that has favored the archetype of the white male anchor, at least in prime time, Ms. Velez-Mitchell brings a unique background. After almost two decades in Los Angeles, chasing local news for its CBS affiliate and covering criminal trials for the syndicated show “Celebrity Justice,” Ms. Velez-Mitchell, 53, was content to fill in for Ms. Grace, promote her book about crimes and write a memoir.
In appearances on Ms. Grace’s show starting in 2005, she had been enticed to share opinions, a marked change from her years in local news where, she recalled, producers would tell her to “stick to the copy.” Having made the leap from news to views, “I kind of sensed that I couldn’t go back” to local journalism, she said. “Which is O.K.: life’s an adventure, and you keep moving forward.”
Ms. Velez-Mitchell said she drew her one-day-at-a-time philosophy from the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous. She will celebrate her 14th year of sobriety on April 1. “That’s really the main thing that informs how I look at the world,” she said. “I’m not in control of anything, so why bother trying to control it?”
Her years of therapy lend a psychological perspective to the crimes that “Issues” covers. Discussing the death of the 2-year-old Caylee Anthony and the indictment of her mother on murder charges, last month she asked her guests about dysfunctional families, using diagnostic terms like “triangulation” and “enmeshment.” “These are phrases that I don’t think you hear on television very often,” she said.
Ms. Velez-Mitchell said some of her views can be traced to her mother, Anita Velez, a former vaudeville performer who exposed her to beliefs about nonviolence. On HLN Ms. Velez-Mitchell expresses shock about violence, in particular in a recurring segment titled “War on Women.”
About four and a half months after Mr. Jautz’s call, Ms. Velez-Mitchell now lives in Midtown Manhattan with her mother and walks to work each day. She has not returned to her condominium in Los Angeles since her abrupt move; she had a friend mail her tax forms to her.
“It’s astounding how little you need to survive, it really is,” she said.
March 3, 2009
A Fill-In on Cable News Is Thrust Into Host’s Chair
By BRIAN STELTER
Jane Velez-Mitchell is a true-crime author, a television talking head, a lesbian, an animal activist, a recovering alcoholic and a vegan. She was until recently a glorified freelancer for Headline News, the sister channel of CNN.
Now she is one of Headline News’s nightly hosts — and her 7 o’clock show is setting ratings records for the network.
Last October, with only nine hours’ notice, Ms. Velez-Mitchell joined the ranks of evening cable news anchors. At home in Los Angeles, drinking her first cup of coffee on Oct. 17, a Friday, Ms. Velez-Mitchell, who had substituted for years for Nancy Grace, the host of her own news show, was jolted by a call. It was from Ken Jautz, the executive vice president of CNN Worldwide in charge of Headline News, who asked her to host the channel’s 7 p.m. hour from Los Angeles that night, then hop on a plane to New York and start a five-nights-a-week shift on Monday. He told her that slot’s program would be called “Issues.”
“Great,” she jokingly recalled responding, “because I have a lot of issues.”
The sudden assignment became a surprising success for Headline News, which was formally renamed HLN in January. Ms. Velez-Mitchell’s hour of water-cooler talk, delivered with heavy doses of opinion, reached an average of 596,000 viewers in February, up 74 percent from the slot’s average for the same month last year, when the conservative commentator Glenn Beck was the host.
Mr. Jautz’s call came the day after Mr. Beck signed a contract with the Fox News Channel. Once it was clear that Mr. Beck wouldn’t be at HLN on Friday, Mr. Jautz scrambled to create a new show in less than 24 hours. Ms. Velez-Mitchell had been on a short list of possible anchors as he considered adding another prime-time show, but neither expected it to happen in a day.
HLN traffics in news headlines during the day, but Mr. Jautz has differentiated the network from CNN by hiring night-time hosts who have what he calls the three P’s: passion, personality and a point of view. The strategy started four years ago with Ms. Grace’s 8 p.m. program about crime and justice; Mr. Beck was added as the 7 p.m. host in mid-2006. The pair helped HLN achieve its record-high ratings in prime time, allowing the network to charge more for advertising.
While Mr. Beck left the network last fall, it did not lose viewers. To the surprise of some at Time Warner, Ms. Velez-Mitchell’s show has received higher ratings than his did.
In February “Issues” reached an average of 241,000 viewers among the 25- to 54-year-old demographic segment of the audience, compared with the 157,000 that Mr. Beck averaged in the same month last year. Mr. Jautz said that the ratings were a “validation of a strategy.”
“The advantage of having two fully distributed TV networks is that we can niche-target,” he said, adding that the election propelled CNN to its best year ever in 2008, even as HLN drew its highest ratings ever.
For the past three months Ms. Grace’s tabloid-oriented show has outdrawn Campbell Brown on CNN and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC programs among 25-to-54-year-olds. (Now hosting the 5 p.m. hour on Fox News, Mr. Beck drew a bigger audience than any of the HLN shows did in February.)
On “Issues,” Ms. Velez-Mitchell and commentators cover a wide swath of the day’s stories, be they a missing child, a plane crash or a debate about the Proposition 8 legislation in California. Still an interim host, Ms. Velez-Mitchell is in long-term contract negotiations with CNN.
In an interview in her office at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan last week, her attitude about the abruptness of her anchor assignment bordered on nonchalance. “In Hollywood, they say good news finds you,” she said, by way of explaining her approach.
In a medium that has favored the archetype of the white male anchor, at least in prime time, Ms. Velez-Mitchell brings a unique background. After almost two decades in Los Angeles, chasing local news for its CBS affiliate and covering criminal trials for the syndicated show “Celebrity Justice,” Ms. Velez-Mitchell, 53, was content to fill in for Ms. Grace, promote her book about crimes and write a memoir.
In appearances on Ms. Grace’s show starting in 2005, she had been enticed to share opinions, a marked change from her years in local news where, she recalled, producers would tell her to “stick to the copy.” Having made the leap from news to views, “I kind of sensed that I couldn’t go back” to local journalism, she said. “Which is O.K.: life’s an adventure, and you keep moving forward.”
Ms. Velez-Mitchell said she drew her one-day-at-a-time philosophy from the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous. She will celebrate her 14th year of sobriety on April 1. “That’s really the main thing that informs how I look at the world,” she said. “I’m not in control of anything, so why bother trying to control it?”
Her years of therapy lend a psychological perspective to the crimes that “Issues” covers. Discussing the death of the 2-year-old Caylee Anthony and the indictment of her mother on murder charges, last month she asked her guests about dysfunctional families, using diagnostic terms like “triangulation” and “enmeshment.” “These are phrases that I don’t think you hear on television very often,” she said.
Ms. Velez-Mitchell said some of her views can be traced to her mother, Anita Velez, a former vaudeville performer who exposed her to beliefs about nonviolence. On HLN Ms. Velez-Mitchell expresses shock about violence, in particular in a recurring segment titled “War on Women.”
About four and a half months after Mr. Jautz’s call, Ms. Velez-Mitchell now lives in Midtown Manhattan with her mother and walks to work each day. She has not returned to her condominium in Los Angeles since her abrupt move; she had a friend mail her tax forms to her.
“It’s astounding how little you need to survive, it really is,” she said.
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