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TV news veteran Chris Cuomo, who was fired by CNN in December, is returning to cable news this fall as host of his own show on the much smaller NewsNation network.
Cuomo’s new one-hour show will air in prime time, just like his CNN show, which ran every weekday from 2018 until last winter, when it left the network in the middle of an ethical controversy.
“Cuomo Primetime” was the highest-rated show on CNN in both 2019 and 2020. Its former star will move to a network that is still trying to build an audience that can compete with cable news flagships. While Cuomo’s CNN show averaged 2 million nightly viewers in 2020, his last full year on the network, NewsNation reports it only averaged 46,000 viewers in prime time last year. (A NewsNation spokesperson said the network does not release ratings information.)
NewsNation was launched in September 2020 by Nexstar Media Group, which owns and operates local television stations across the country. The new channel, which replaced WGN America on the cable dial, launched with the goal of providing unbiased, mid-level news reporting and analysis. Other presenters include Dan Abrams, a friend of Cuomo’s, former CNN anchor Ashleigh Banfield, former Fox News reporter Leland Vittert and former ABC News reporter Adrienne Bankert. Nexstar executive Sean Compton said Cuomo will “step up our efforts to continue to ensure fairness and transparency in our news and talk reporting.”
Cuomo’s fall at CNN was swift and abrupt. In late November, the network suspended him indefinitely after documents released by the New York attorney general’s office detailed his efforts to help his brother, then-New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, defend -se of accusations of sexual misconduct. He was fired several days later, after CNN management ruled that Cuomo had misled the network — and then-Chairman Jeff Zucker — about the extent of his assistance to his brother, including the revelation that he had made calls to reporters about the timing of upcoming stories about his brother’s behavior with women.
Zucker himself was fired a few months later, with some CNN employees blaming Cuomo.
Cuomo has maintained throughout that he did not mislead anyone about the aid he was giving his brother. In an interview with Abrams On Tuesday night, during which Cuomo’s new show was announced, he claimed that he “never lied” and that he “kept no secrets” from CNN leadership. He also said he did not call reporters directly with the goal of affecting coverage of his brother.
Asked by Abrams if he is a victim of “cancellation culture,” Cuomo said he doesn’t “feel sorry for [himself]” and is not a victim.
Cuomo was also asked about an allegation of sexual misconduct made by a former colleague earlier in his career, which he has previously denied through a spokesman. “None of that happened,” Cuomo said. “My feeling is: it is in the past. I will never be able to convince people one way or the other. I notice the story by commenting on it. I denied it and you try to move on.”
Because Cuomo felt he was unfairly fired, he filed an arbitration lawsuit seeking $125 million in compensation from the company in March. Cuomo’s lawyers argued that CNN’s “calculated efforts to tar him” left him “untouchable in the world of broadcast journalism” and denied him millions in future earnings. That pending litigation prevented him from answering some of Abrams’ questions, he said.
Cuomo recently launched a podcast called “The Chris Cuomo Project.” In his inaugural episode, he said he didn’t want to re-litigate the controversy with his brother or trash his former network.
“I’m really sorry how it all ended, but I’ll never regret helping my family,” he said. “As for CNN, I will never be a hater. CNN has great people. CNN has a great purpose. And I wish them all the best, and I miss so many people there. But, it’s time to move on and I think I can be more than I’ve ever been before.”
