CNN aims to return to the recipe that gave its viewers explorers of international cuisine such as Anthony Bourdain and Stanley Tucci.
After announcing in October of 2022 that the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed outlet would pull back on the efforts that made it a name in original documentary series and films — ostensibly to cut costs at a time when its corporate parent was grappling with significant debt — CNN wants to get back into the business of developing original non-fiction series and movies.
“I think we are very much in the rebuild phase,” Amy Entelis, executive vice president for talent and content, tells Variety during a recent interview.
Mark Thompson, named in August to oversee CNN following a tumultuous run under predecessor Chris Licht, has articulated a strategy of building out new areas and verticals that can help the company win more customers and viewers. Original series would seem to be one of them. “A lot of places have canceled this type of work, especially on the documentary film side. We are very gratified that people are bringing us great ideas,” says Entelis. “They are happy that we are back.”
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Some of CNN’s new non-fiction projects will take the network on paths well-trod. Others could push it into new terrain.
Eva Longoria will take viewers on a trip across Spain to examine its cuisine in “Eva Longoria: Searching for Spain,” a new series that picks up after the actor tackled a similar excursion set in Mexico for the now-scrapped CNN+. Entelis sees “Searching” as the latest in the adventure tradition previously burnished by Tucci and Bourdain, and believes viewers will admire “her passion and enthusiasm.”
Meanwhile, CNN hopes to move its Saturday-night schedule into what Entelis calls “topical entertainment.” The network will launch an American version of the long-running BBC program “Have I Got News for You,” in which a rotating panel of comedians, pundits, political experts and entertainers hash out the news of the week. Such a program isn’t what CNN has traditionally delivered, but the network recently started running repeats of Bill Maher’s lively HBO program “Real Time” on Saturday night, and Entelis believes the network has “brand permission” to experiment in such an area. Fox News has already been doing so with a Saturday-night panel show led by Jimmy Failla, a stand-up comic.
“What else in the programming arena would appeal to our audience, the smart audience and the global audience?” Entelis asks. Weekend viewers might like a break from the intensity of the news week with programs about lifestyle or “have a laugh about something and maybe be able to connect to a personality who wouldn’t necessarily be anchoring a show on CNN or even an original series,” she says. “We will be exploring that going forward.”
The network aims to revive its original series and films as much of its TV schedule grapples for ratings. CNN has in recent months become less competitive with rivals MSNBC and Fox News Channel when it comes to viewership, not more, even as the 2024 presidential election, typically a catalyst for broader audiences, grows closer.
Those two rivals have also developed original non-fiction series, with Fox News populating its Fox Nation streaming outlet with series that examine American history or places of interest with narration by actors including Kevin Costner or Kelsey Grammer. MSNBC launched a travel series led by John Leguizamo, along with a handful of films.
“I’ve seen some very good content at competitive networks, but I feel like we made our lane pretty early and that turned out to be a big advantage,” says Entelis.
CNN never fully exited the originals business; it simply produced fewer series with outside partners and depended more heavily on its own personnel. One recent documentary series examined the life of Martha Stewart, relying heavily on clips from her appearances on Larry King’s long-running CNN talk show. And CNN recently renewed an original series led by Jake Tapper in which he looks at political scandals and seeks to interview the people at the center of them. Entelis says the series shows viewers a different side of the journalist they may not previously have recognized.
Some of CNN’s future efforts will seek to offer viewers an in-depth look at an historical event, potentially relying on new interviews and investigation as well as CNN’s deep archives. New docuseries in the works will examine the rise and fall of Twitter and the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Some will probe pop culture, such as “Luther: Never Too Much,” a chronicle of the life of singer Luther Vandross that is being acquired in tandem with sibling network OWN.
CNN originally turned to developing its own documentary series in 2013, part of a bid to offer something different to viewers when breaking news wasn’t drawing eyes to the network. At a party held to celebrate the launch of Bourdain’s critically acclaimed series in that same year, Jeff Zucker, then president of CNN, joked to the crowd that he hoped they liked the show, because it was likely to run multiple times.
But something funny happened as CNN kept backing Bourdain and developing similar concepts. CNN created a library of documentaries on everything from the mental decline of singer Glen Campbell to the plight of killer whales in captivity at Sea World. CNN enlisted Morgan Spurlock, Lisa Ling and Mike Rowe to helm weekly docuseries that had the hosts fan out across the U.S. And the programs helped CNN enter new areas, such as film festivals, and strike partnerships with different kinds of journalists. The network also landed premium ad deals with sponsors like Eli Lilly & Co. and Allstate.
By 2020, Entelis says, the documentary market had gotten overheated, and production prices were up. Complicating matters still, she adds, CNN kept several of its series in production — all with some international locations — during the coronavirus pandemic “We kept going as best we could,” she says, “and our price per series really went up more than we anticipated.”
Now, she says, “I think we are looking to produce at a reasonable level and know that we can get the right kind of return for it. The audience has to come to it. We are advertising-supported and we are looking for support from sponsors again, and it all just has to add up to a sensible plan. There were some forces out of everyone’s control in 2020 and we are just sort of looking to be very deliberate and intentional at this point and it has to, writ large, make sense for us.”
For Entelis, there is also a sense of ownership. CNN’s documentary efforts have resulted in efforts such as the 2018 film, “RBG,” about the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, or “Navalny,” the recent film about the life of Russian opposition leader Alexy Navalny that won an Oscar last year.
“The work means something to people. It can even get inspirational,” she says, noting that she is still struck by a creative process that may have someone who “comes in the door with an idea” working on a project that will reach a receptive audience in two years’ time. “I feel incredibly proud of the body of work my team has created along with all of these amazing partners and production companies and directors,” Entelis says. ”It is a very wonderful opportunity, It continues to be a really good opportunity. And the work really stands for itself.”
