Van Susteren latest prize in cable news battle: Fox's Ailes answers call and hires CNN veteran

Cable World, Jan 7, 2002 by Staci C. Kramer

The cable news battle between Fox News and CNN took another turn last week as Fox hired CNN veteran Greta Van Susteren.

With one move, Fox News chairman Roger Ailes managed to fill Fox's 10 p.m. vacancy and weaken CNN's lineup. He also got some payback for CNN's poaching of Paula Zahn last year and, for good measure, appeared to broaden Fox's political spectrum by hiring someone often criticized by conservatives.

Challenger Fox News and established CNN have been locked in a ratings battle, in which talent is a key weapon.

Both networks find ways to claim they're No. 1, and for 2001, they tied with a 1 rating in prime time and 0.6 rating for total day.

CNN has been retooling its lineup to stave off Fox, and Van Susteren survived round after round of cutbacks and program changes to emerge as a linchpin in CNN News Group chairman Walter Isaacson's personality-oriented programming strategy.

Her departure leaves a hole in the lineup for CNN, which says it will continue the show with rotating hosts from its staff for now.

Despite her role in CNN's plans, Van Susteren wasn't locked into CNN with a long-term contract. The one-year extension she signed last spring would have expired at the end of March 2002. Unhappy with what she perceived as a lack of support and promotion for her prime-time show, The Point, and with the changes at CNN after the merger that created AOL Time Warner, Van Susteren told Cable World she called Ailes last November to see whether Fox was interested.

Van Susteren's ratings at CNN made her attractive. Hers was the second highest-rated prime-time show at CNN with a 1.4 and nearly 1.2 million households at 8:30 p.m. Also, she was running a strong second to Fox's own The O'Reilly Factor in the same time slot (2.2 and 1.6 million households) and was pulling significantly higher ratings than CNN's Aaron Brown at 10 p.m. (1.1 and 945,000 households). She also outdrew Fox's current 10 p.m. show, War on Terror (1.2 and 889,000).

But even as Ailes was negotiating with Van Susteren to take over the 10 to 11 p.m. slot, Kevin Magee, Fox News VP-programming, didn't believe she would actually end up at Fox. He recalls telling Ailes, "CNN can't let her go. They can't afford it."

CNN tried to keep her by countering Fox's offer--reported variously as $900,000 to more than a million a year for four years-with more money. "I told CNN and I told Fox--this was never about money. I went for less money at Fox. ... I wanted to make sure that every day I loved every single minute of my work," Van Susteren said. She didn't feel that way any more at CNN. "I looked around: A lot of my friends were gone ... at night when I'd walk down the halls I'd see empty offices."

CNN had little to say publicly about the ten-year veteran's departure. Instead, the network provided an internal memo from Sid Bedingfield, EVP and GM, CNN/U.S. that read, in part: "Greta has decided that the time is right to pursue opportunities elsewhere. We respect her decision and--although she'll be working for a competitor--we wish her well."

As of late last week, a tentative agreement was in place to end her term at CNN by Jan. 31. Her first night at Fox would be Feb. 4.

Van Susteren said MSNBC was never an option. "I never considered MSNBC to be competitive with CNN," she explained. MSNBC is a distant third behind CNN and Fox in household ratings.

Van Susteren dismisses reports that she left because she wasn't getting the same star treatment as Paula Zahn.

She was disturbed, though, by how hard she had to fight to get support and promotion for her show. "As the second highest-rated show I think they should have paid more attention to it. In theory, CNN could have kept me if they thought earlier about the things that were important to me."

A trial lawyer and law professor, Van Susteren joined CNN as a legal analyst in 1991, serving as a commentator on the highest-profile cases of the last decade, starting with the William Kennedy Smith rape trial. In 1995, in the wake of the O.J. Simpson trial, CNN created the half-hour midday legal affairs show Burden of Proof for Van Susteren and fellow analyst Roger Cossack. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Van Susteren argued against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, as did another recent high-profile Fox hire, Geraldo Rivera.

Burden went off the air after Sept. 11 and was later canceled. The network dismissed Cossack, but kept Van Susteren and The Point.