Kaitlan Collins will permanently take over CNN’s 9 p.m. hour, the network announced on Wednesday, finally filling the vacant primetime slot a week after she hosted the network’s calamitous town hall with former President Donald Trump.
The decision was announced during CNN’s upfront presentation to advertisers on Wednesday. It was first teased to network staffers by CEO Chris Licht, who praised Collins as “one of the top reporters and interviewers in the game.”
“She is a smart and gifted journalist who we’ve all seen hold lawmakers and newsmakers accountable,” Licht wrote in a memo to CNN employees. “She pushes politicians off their talking points, gets real answers—and as everyone who’s worked with her knows—breaks a lot of news.”
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The Collins-led show will launch in June, when she will host all weeknights but Wednesdays once the Gayle King and Charles Barkley power-hour King Charles launches this fall, the network announced.
Collins will leave her role as co-anchor of CNN This Morning, Licht said, where co-anchor Poppy Harlow will continue with a series of guest hosts until a permanent replacement is named.
The slot has been without a permanent host since December 2021, when Chris Cuomo was fired after the network discovered the extent of his aid to his ex-governor brother amid multiple harassment allegations. Since then, CNN has tried variety of methods to juice the hour back to its ratings high—special programs, guest hosts, and a short-lived stint by anchor Jake Tapper—before eventually trialing and giving it to Collins.
Collins’ rise to primetime has been nothing short of meteoric. She joined the network as a White House correspondent in 2017 after a stint at the Daily Caller, the conservative news outlet co-founded by Tucker Carlson. Her coverage of the Trump administration and the 2020 election cemented her as a rising star among the network’s ranks, later resulting in a promotion to chief White House correspondent in 2021—making her the the youngest in CNN history. Within two years, she was elevated to a co-host of Licht’s re-branded (and ratings-deficient) morning show CNN This Morning alongside Harlow and former primetime star Don Lemon, who was fired by the network last month.
The move is also reflective of Licht’s apparent talent strategy, where nearly every large-scale programming decision has included Collins in some form. Collins was front and center of Licht’s first morning show on the network and moderated CNN’s first town hall with Trump in seven years. She will now battle for ratings against the likes of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Fox News’ Sean Hannity, two household fixtures—an indication Licht intends to turn Collins into the same.
“Kaitlan will expose uncovered angles and challenge conventional wisdom to make sure viewers are seeing a story from every side,” Licht wrote. “When she doesn’t know the answer, she asks—and she won’t stop until she gets them.”
