Joy Behar’s New Show Part Of HLN’s “Estrogen-Heavy Lineup”

By Alissa Krinsky 

When Joy Behar’s new HLN talk show premieres three weeks from tonight, it joins an evening lineup the AP’s David Bauder calls “estrogen-heavy.”

With lead-in programs hosted by Nancy Grace and Jane Velez-Mitchell, Bauder writes the show will air “to an audience that is nearly two-thirds women…

“It’s not like men are unwelcome, but when a rerun of Lou Dobbs’ CNN show fell flat in Behar’s soon-to-be time slot, HLN yanked him this summer for Velez-Mitchell.”

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Conway Cliff, the former EP of Velez-Mitchell’s program, is now overseeing Behar’s show. He says the predominance of female hosts is “sort of a happy coincidence…It happened organically.”

It’s all part of HLN’s overall programming evolution from a “wheel of half-hour newscasts”, as Bauder says, to its current hybrid of personality-driven shows followed by daytime headlines and evening opinion programs. “It was a big risk,” EVP of CNN Worldwide Ken Jautz tells Bauder. “It paid off, and it probably paid off better than I expected.”

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