Headed into season two, Warner Bros.' Anderson is
getting a makeover, including changing its name to Anderson Live and
adding more live features to the show.
"Our biggest overall goal for Anderson Live is
to take the best elements of daytime and put them in a show that works in 2012.
Being live plays to Anderson's strengths, providing immediacy and topicality,
which allows us to talk about what is going on in the world," said Terence
Noonan, the show's executive producer. "Anderson Live is the show
that makes you a little smarter, the one that you have fun watching, and at the
end of each episode you can't wait to tune in the next day to see what's
happening."
The show, which stars CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, will be
renamed Anderson Live and it will be shot in front of a live studio
audience, à
la Disney-ABC's Live! with Kelly, the show on which Cooper cut his talk
teeth. Anderson Live also is moving from the Time Warner Center to a new
permanent set at the CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan, which will have live
capabilities that will allow the show to cover events while they are happening.
"Our basic issue with our old studio was that we didn't
control that space," says Noonan. "It was a performance space; it
wasn't an actual studio. We had to take everything down every night. We can
take advantage of the technology at the CBS Broadcast Center because they
already do live shows there, such as the CBS Morning Show and the CBS
Evening News. We can control our space and make it our home."
AsB&C previously reported, in season two, Anderson Live will
feature different cohosts every day -- an experiment with which the show had
good luck during the May sweeps. Naming a permanent cohost is still a
possibility, said Noonan, but it's not as if the show is actively conducting a
search.
"We've got a lot of fun, great things planned for the
new season. I am really excited to be joined by daily cohosts and look forward
to switching to a live format, which allows us more freedom to cover topical
issues as well as connect more with the viewer at home," said Cooper in a
statement.
Besides a variety of cohosts, Anderson Live is
welcoming a new co-executive producer, with George Davilas joining the show.
Davilas previously was senior supervising producer at CBS Television
Distribution's The Doctors.
Celebrities already booked to appear this season include
Richard Gere and the cast of the new movie Arbitrage, Emma Watson and
the cast of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and TV stars such as Modern
Family's Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell, The Mindy Project's Mindy
Kaling, Scandal's Kerry Washington and The Colbert Report's
Stephen Colbert.
Anderson Live also plans to boost its social-media
efforts. The show's companion website, AndersonCooper.com, is launching several
new initiatives, including Anderson's Summer Instagram Photo-A-Day Challenge, a
month-long photo sharing contest beginning Monday, Aug. 6, on Instagram where
fans can post photos for a chance to win prizes; "Stump Anderson," in
which fans are encouraged to send Cooper trivia questions that he'll attempt to
answer during live webcasts; and "Anderson Seat Tweets," in which
fans attending the show will send out live tweets as the show goes on.
TV affiliates that air Anderson Live will receive new
promos announcing the changes to season two on Tuesday evening (July 31) that
they can start airing on Wednesday, Aug. 1. Anderson Live will premiere
season two on Monday, Sept. 10.
Anderson was last season's top-rated rookie, but both stations and Warner Bros. would like to see its ratings improved. Last week, Anderson averaged a 1.1 live plus same day national household rating, putting it at the low end of talk-show ranking
