“Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Today, American Morning ended its decade-long run without a peep to its peeps. No nod to its original anchor, “just a little sexy” Paula Zahn, its final permanent one, “Chetrylicious” Kiran Chetry, or its other less colorful ones. In fact, holiday guest co-hosts Alina Cho and Deborah Feyerich did not even offer AM‘s loyal viewers a final farewell.
In the final segment today, Alina and Deb were surrounded on the AM divan by CNN nameless faces. As the strains of Auld Lang Syne began to air, Deb declared, “And, before we leave, we want to show appreciation to all those who work behind the scenes here at American Morning. These are the folks who get up in the middle of night when everyone is sleeping to bring you this show, and they do it with a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of energy.”
Chiming in animatedly, Alina asserted, “These are the people who work behind the scene tirelessly day and night to make us look good each and every day. And, we cannot thank you enough because we’re nothing without you guys.” She concluded, “Thank you very much. Happy New Year! We hope you have a great year.”
Subsequently, as the final credits began to run, ironically, producers struck up Auld Lang Syne again. No retrospectives of the show’s past co-hosts nor highlights of the program were shown at all. In fact, no mention was made that the show had ended to AM‘s audience who were not in the know.
What a surprise awaits the unwitting viewer next Monday (January 2). AM and its usual “temporary anchors” Ali Velshi, Christine Romans, and Carol Costello or their fill-ins will be nowhere to be found. Instead, two new CNN shows and their cohosts will be there: I.e., CNN newbies, Zoraida Sambolin and Ashleigh Banfield, will greet the viewers in the 5-7 a.m. ET hours, and AM veteran Soledad O’Brien will visit them anew from 7-9 a.m. ET.
Auld lang syne: forget about it? As AM ended today, unfortunately, CNN did not give its AM audience a chance to remember the good times past nor to bid adieu to their old friends today. Rather, CNN seemed to simply hope that their “hung-over” viewers would be happy to make entirely new morning acquaintances next year. In three short days.
Carpe Diem 