That was quick.

Less than a year after her debut, Connie Chung was unceremoniously dumped from CNN today. Her show was apparently bumped for war-related coverage, and when she asked the brass when she'd be coming back, they told her she wasn't. They threw her a bone by offering other CNN-related work, but she passed.

Admittedly, her show was not very good. The best thing you could say for it was that it was orange, given the dominant color scheme of her set. She's not that good at live stuff, and her show seemed to focus on twaddle. On the other hand, she outlasted Donahue and his vaunted return to the talk format, and she was drawing about a million viewers a night.

The article I read suggested a conflict among the head honchos at CNN, who were split as to the use of household name anchors to boost ratings. Given the quality of programming overall at CNN of late, I have to think that there's more conflict afoot than the whole Connie Chung thing.

It could just be me, but perhaps they should go back to focusing on broadcast news rather than all sorts of shows. Fox News has found success with the show format, but I'd have to guess that they tapped into the same market that drives conservative talk radio. Keep Crossfire, keep Moneyline and Lou Dobbs, but otherwise, maybe just straight news and analysis without the branding. And while we're at it, return Headline News to the old format. This cross between Bloomberg and Battling Seizure Robots has to go.