CNN to Play Musical Chairs with Piers Morgan's Seat

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Back in my News Director days, I had a GM that said "you should never experiment on air." What he was basically saying, is figure out what you're going to do and then do it. When you experiment on air, you confuse the viewers.

It was some of the best advice I ever got.

It is also obvious that CNN boss Jeff Zucker never got that same advice and if he did, he chose to ignore it. 

Politico says that Piers Morgan will officially end his primetime show at the end of the month and will be temporarily replaced by alternating hosts, including Bill Weir and Jake Tapper.

Morgan's departure from primetime sets up a head-to-head trial-run between two ambitious anchors for the coveted 9 p.m. slot. Weir, the former ABC Nightline anchor, is scheduled to anchor "Piers Morgan Live" for the week of March 17. Morgan will return the following week for his final broadcasts, after which Tapper is scheduled to take the reins.

From there, CNN will test Weir, Tapper, and possibly other hosts until deciding what to do with the 9 p.m. hour. The network may ultimately decide to split up the hour or give it over to non-news programming.

Allison Gollust, CNN's senior vice president of communications, declined to comment on the network's specific programming decisions.

"All I can say is you will see a lot of experimentation on our air in the coming weeks," she wrote in an email. "We aren't going to comment on every one of them...and a lot of decisions have yet to be made."

Ahhhh the experimentation of the on air lineup.

My old GM would be rolling over in his grave....if he was dead that is.