Thanks to Politico's Michael Calderone, The Cable Gamer now understands why CNN president Jon Klein still has his job. Despite taking CNN from #2 to #3 by most measures, Klein keeps reeling in millions, and gets t keep his big office. What's Klein's secret? I used to think that Klein had the goods on his boss at Time-Warner, Jeff Bewkes, and while that might be possible, what's really obvious, now, is that Klein is never without his politically correct opinions. That's his survival secret.
And so, for example, Klein issues an edict against using radio talk show hosts as guests, because,he says, they are "all too predictable." Whatever else they might be, radio talkers are the opposite of predictable--they are the most dynamic, or at least energetic, force in the media today. But establishment liberals hate them, even the liberal talker. And so that's that. So Klein has served his masters on the Upper East Side and in the Hamptons, at the expense of his dwindling number of viewers.
All of which led Bill Press, the former CNN host, now a radio talker, to label Klein, "the stupidest of all" the network bosses.
Well, maybe he is. But since he seems to have read his bosses right, serving up poltically correct opinions and a little glam, his job seems secure.
