There are reports this afternoon that CNN is looking at bringing back its classic left-right political talk show Crossfire:
CNN is looking to bring back “Crossfire,” TVNewser hears. The long-running political debate show was canceled in 2005.
It isn’t entirely clear what time the program would air, though we hear it would likely be a 30-minute format. During its original run from 1982-2005, “Crossfire” aired in both the afternoons and primetime, in addition to weekend editions. Aside from a brief 60-minute experiment, it was always 30 minutes. CNN declined to comment.
As much as I liked Crossfire during its classic days when the head-to-head was between Tom Braden and Pat Buchanan, and later when the adversaries were Buchanan and Michael Kinsley, it did start going downhill pretty quickly after the original participants parted ways with the show. By the time of the classic Jon Stewart takedown that many mark as the end of the show, when the left-right faceoff was between Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson, the show had become something of a parody of itself. If they do bring it back, they’re going to have to be careful about who they select as hosts because most of the talking heads on cable today, whether on the left or the right, do little more than spout talking points while yelling at each other. If I wanted that, I’d pop in the video tape of the last family reunion.
H/T: Jeff Quinton
