Albie Hecht, the founder of Spike TV, has begun his role as the new head of HLN, and plans on bringing some major changes to the news network.
After Hecht took over in September, he has started to implement his changes, first cancelling noon show “Raising America” with Kyra Philips and the 5 p.m. “Evening Express” with Ryan Smith, which will result in staff layoffs. Both show hosts were promised new roles at different shows on the network.
HLN’s 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. afternoon programming block will also be altered, now called “News Now” with anchors Mike Galanos, Susan Hendricks, Christi Paul and Lynn Berry.
According to Hecht, this is only the start to HLN’s upcoming changes as he plans reorganization at the news net.
Read more at Adweek.
Brief Take: CNN’s Jeff Zucker tapped Hecht for this role in order to build HLN into a stronger brand and cement it as CNN’s sister news network. In order to raise the profile of the relatively new news outlet, Hecht hopes to live up to that by getting stronger faces and brand daily content blocks.
[Image courtesy of HLN]
Tags: