Anthony Bourdain.
FACES OF FUTURE: CNN’s only two stars right now are Anderson Cooper (left) and Anthony Bourdain (right). (© Star Shooter / Mediapunchinc)
Suffering its worst ratings in 20 years, CNN is going Hollywood.
In the past few weeks, the No. 3 cable news channel has started seeking out reality-show ideas and big-name stars not afraid to talk politics. They have even begun working on a late-night talk show, The Post has learned.
Convinced that its current programming badly needs updating, CNN execs have been making the rounds of Hollywood’s top talent agencies — something entertainment networks do several times a year but a first for the old-line news channel.
In a series of conference calls, the network has also been soliciting ideas from the same producers who supply reality shows to channels like Bravo, Discovery and History, according to sources.
That, too, is a first for CNN, which has refused — until now — to use outside producers to create its shows.
Last month, the man who’d been running CNN for the past decade, Jim Walton, took the fall for the network’s steep ratings slide and will be forced out at the end of the year.
Most people in TV had assumed the news network would wait until it found a new president before tinkering with its ailing prime-time lineup.
But indications are that the pressure is on to overhaul the network now, while it can still be saved.
Among the changes in the works, according to documents obtained by The Post, are:
* A late-night talk show featuring a panel — an 11 p.m. version of “The View.”
* Five new reality shows to air on Saturday and Sunday nights — to compliment traveling chef Anthony Bourdain, who is set to debut a new Sunday night CNN show starting early next year.
* A hunt for new on-air personalities outside of traditional TV news. Bourdain is the “prototype” for the new star CNN is now looking for, it is telling Hollywood agents.
One outside producer who has been in meetings with CNN brass likened it to “that moment when MTV decided to stop playing music videos, because it wasn’t working more.”
Many of the ideas the network now seems willing to embrace in order to get back into the ratings race have been proposed before.
Campbell Brown, the ex-NBC and CNN anchorwoman, tried several years ago to create a reality show around a group of young Washington operatives all living together in DC.
The cast would double as analysts on her then-nightly show, according to former staffers of hers.
But the idea died in the network’s briar-patch bureaucracy that splits management duties between New York and Atlanta, the staffer said.
Anderson Cooper — CNN’s only claimant to real TV star power — appears to be the only one safe in the network’s primetime lineup, say those who have talked with programming officials there.
A CNN spokesman yesterday declined comment.