By: Rusty Brooks
Chris Cuomo is heading back to cable TV, this time on a network with even fewer viewers than CNN itself
According to an exclusive report by The New York Post, Chris Cuomo is set to return to television news. Alexandra Steigrad writes, “Cuomo revealed his comeback bid on Dan Abrams’ NewsNation show Tuesday night. The news marked the first time Cuomo has appeared on TV since being canned from CNN last year over his role in advising his older brother, then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo”.
The new job comes with a major pay cut. Cuomo, who was allegedly earning six million dollars a year at CNN, will have to settle for a cool million to join the brand new news network .
“I had decided that I can’t go back to what people see as ‘the big game,’” Cuomo said in his interview with Dan Abrams. “I don’t think I can make a difference there. I think we need insurgent media. I think we need outlets that aren’t fringe and just trying to fill their pockets.”
Alexandra “Dusty” Cohen, a former producer on “The View,” will be Cuomo’s executive producer. The old WPIX studios on East 42nd Street in Manhattan are being renovated for the NewsNation Network and will include new dedicated studio space for Cuomo.
The NewsNation Network is not shying away from hiring people with scandals in their past. Michael Corn, the former “Good Morning America” producer who was embroiled in a sexual harassment suit that was recently dropped, will be president of news programming.
According to The New York Post, the former CNN star is suing his old network for a staggering $125 million in damages after he was fired for his own sexual harassment scandal and allegedly using his press connections to aid the defense of his embattled older brother.
NewsNation is hoping the addition of Cuomo to their daily programming will increase viewers to their basically unseen network
NewsNation is an American subscription television network owned by the Nexstar Media Group, and is the company’s only wholly owned, national cable-originated television channel. The channel runs a mixture of entertainment programming (consisting of comedy and drama series, and theatrical feature films) for most of the broadcast day and a straight-news format during the evening and overnight hours, and also on weekday mornings.
Known for most of its history as Superstation WGN before becoming WGN America in 2014, it relaunched on March 1, 2021, as a cable news network named after its flagship news program. The channel’s relaunch came as part of a planned expansion of its news programming will raise their ratings. So far their programming, which contains a mix of news and reruns of popular shows like Blue Bloods, has gotten an average of 85,000 viewers per day. At CNN, Cuomo managed to attract around two million viewers at the his height of popularity during the pandemic in 2020. 85,000 viewers among a viewing universe of over 200 million Americans, is incredibly insignificant. Cuomo is going from a well-established network which nobody watched, to a new network which nobody watches.