Jim Acosta, one of CNN's most popular news anchors, has been approached by the network's chief to move his weekday show from its current mid-morning perch to the graveyard midnight shift, Oliver Darcy first reported in his Status newsletter.
Some see the proposed move, which would involve Acosta hosting his program until the wee hours of the morning, as the network potentially seeking to curry favor with Donald Trump. The incoming president has long despised the outspoken Acosta. CNN has also recently taken a noticeably softened approach to the president-elect, including giving Trump defender Scott Jennings increased airtime.
"They want to get rid of Acosta to throw a bone to Trump," one media executive told Darcy. "Midnight is not a serious offer when his ratings are among the best on the network."
Amid the network's consideration of a shakeup of its dayside lineup, which would see CNN stalwart Wolf Blitzer move to mornings to co-anchor a two-hour show with Pamela Brown, CNN chief Mark Thompson called Acosta on Wednesday night to offer him a proposal: Move your program to the midnight to 2 a.m. slot.
A CNN spokesperson and Acosta both declined to comment.
The call caught the anchor off-guard, according to Darcy, particularly because Acosta didn't feel like he was in any danger of losing his show or being demoted. While CNN has suffered record-low viewership in recent months, Acosta has historically been one of the top-rated hosts on the network. Despite helming a show at 10 a.m. ET, he has occasionally outdrawn some of his primetime colleagues.
"So why force him to move his show to the 12 a.m. hour, a time slot occupied by virtually zero other hosts in the cable news business?" Darcy wondered. "The move would effectively exile Acosta to the Siberia of television news. He'd be manning down a shift when much of the country is fast asleep and viewership is at its lowest."
It remains unclear if Acosta will soon end his time at CNN, where he has been for nearly two decades. The anchor is seriously considering accepting the offer, which would also likely see him move to Los Angeles. Additionally, during the call with Thompson, Acosta was told that the move had nothing to do with his editorial style or ratings.
While the proposal is possibly just an attempt by Thompson to find more space in the lineup to shift Blitzer -- who is 76 and facing a potential retirement soon -- over to a two-hour morning slot, it can't be ignored that Acosta being buried in a red eye slot would make the president-elect happy.
At the same time, while some executives see CNN sending the longtime Trump antagonist and former White House correspondent off to the hinterlands of midnight TV as appeasing MAGA, others at the network aren't sure there's any real ulterior motive in place.
"Not to me," one on-air personality told The Independent when asked if this proposal was an effort to curry favor with Trump. "Honestly, this place is such a mess. I'd actually be relieved if ANY decisions had a rationale behind them. Even one like that."
Indeed, the network has been through a host of changes in recent years. Long gone are the days of Jeff Zucker, who pushed an aggressive anti-Trump editorial approach before he was pushed out in 2022. Under new corporate parent Warner Bros. Discovery and its CEO David Zaslav, the channel has not only taken a noticeably softer approach towards Trump but it has also been tasked with cutting costs and slashing jobs.
Former CNN chief Chris Licht, who was let go in 2023 after a tumultuous year-long reign, released a number of hosts and commentators who had seemingly fallen out of favor with Zaslav and other WBD executives over their strident anti-Trump commentary. At the same time, even though known for his stinging rebukes of Trump, Acosta emerged from the Licht era unscathed.
"CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them," Trump once said of Acosta in 2018 following an intense confrontation at a press conference. The administration even briefly revoked Acosta's press pass over the exchange.
Thompson, who is looking to reshape CNN into a digital-first operation amid increased cord-cutting and plummeting linear television ad revenues, also presented the proposed move as something of a promotion for Acosta, noting that CNN is a global brand. While his show would air after midnight on the East Coast, it would be on primetime in the Pacific time zone. Additionally, the network's 9-11 p.m. PT programming airs live on CNN's international channel, which would broadcast Acosta during the morning in London and Paris.