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CNN looking west for `new economy'

February 26, 2000

BY MICHELE GREPPI THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

NEW YORK--In his first major announcement, Shelby Coffey III, president of CNN Business News and CNNfn, laid the groundwork for a new show, new content relationships and a new bicoastal unit dedicated to ``the new economy.''

The move of ``Moneyline News Hour'' anchor Willow Bay to Los Angeles, which is home base for her husband, Bob Iger, the longtime ABC executive recently anointed Disney's No. 2 executive, was also a topic in Thursday's announcement.

Coffey is determined to expand coverage of the dot-com and tech-market movers and shapers who are ``transforming business models everywhere,'' Coffey said Thursday. His network's commitment to keeping Bay without exacerbating stress on her own two-career family ``dovetails wonderfully'' with that goal.

``This is a lot of stuff that was already gonna happen,'' said Coffey, a former Los Angeles Times editor who joined CNN last year after spending less than two years at ABC News.

By late summer, Bay will co-anchor CNN's ``NewsStand'' and ``Moneyline'' from L.A., which also will be the base for the new-economy unit, whose emphasis is to be on Silicon Valley, and the Latin and Asian regions of the Pacific Rim.

Content partners in the unit, which will position CNNfn correspondent Katharine Bartlett in Seattle, will be CNN's Time Warner stablemates Fortune and eCompany Now (scheduled to launch in May) and the Industry Standard and the Financial Times.

The new show, titled ``The N.E.W. (New Economy Watch) Show,'' is scheduled to debut in March and air 5-6 p.m. weekdays on CNNfn. It will be anchored from New York by CNNfn's Patricia Sabga and Charles Molineaux. Among other information, it will offer live stock quotes from after-hours trading houses, including the tech-driven Nasdaq.

-- canthappen (n@ysayer.com), February 26, 2000

Answers

Ah yes, would it not be ironic if CNN's "New Economy Watch" show debuted to the tune of a MAJOR Wall Street slide especially in the "New Economy" stocks!!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), February 26, 2000.

As we said in Pompei,
timing is everything.

-- pliney the younger (pliney@puget.sound.2pound.rain), February 26, 2000.

Too funny. Are these people stupid, or what?

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), February 26, 2000.

i absolutely love it. if something goes terribly wrong, just create a diversion and focus on the diversion. the absolute best spin ideas come from the media--they are such experts.

THE NEW ECONOMY----WHAT A HOOT!

-- tt (cuddluppy@aol.com), February 27, 2000.