CNN Cleans House!

Jeff Zucker is cleaning house over at CNN headquarters. The nation's first cable news network is trailing behind the partisan rancor of MSNBC and Fox News.

It's up to Zucker to save the network from demise.

American cable news has gotten too controversial. If you're not shouting at one another or making an enemy out of the opposition, you're not getting the ratings.

Soledad O'Brien loses her morning spot. Erin Burnett will take the helm of the morning.

Jeff Zucker brought on Jake Tapper and Chris Coumo. They both bounced off ABC to join CNN.

Jeff Zucker is cleaning house.

The married political couple Mary Matalin and James Carville are sent their walking papers. They've been longtime fixtures since the days of CNN's old show Crossfire.

Conservative blogger and founder of RedState Erick Erickson is gone. He's has no immediate plans to run for the seat of retiring Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia). He may join Fox News.

The old fixtures Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Howard Kurtz and Candy Crowley are still up in the air.

The Daily Beast reports the huge shakeup.

Zucker launched his makeover Tuesday by announcing the imminent arrival of ABC News anchor Chris Cuomo to take over the troubled 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. slot currently occupied by Soledad O’Brien. According to network sources, Cuomo, who was said to be unhappy at ABC’s 20/20 since being passed over in 2009 for the top job at Good Morning America, will be joined in the morning by the current anchor of CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront, leaving a hole for Zucker to fill at 7 p.m.

CNN veteran O’Brien’s fate is up in the air, though it’s probable she’ll receive a plum assignment. “Soledad is very important to the network and we are discussing various options with her,” a CNN spokeswoman said in a terse statement.

That sort of decisive leadership is exactly what Zucker was hired to bring by Time Warner chief executive Jeffrey Bewkes, who lured the former chairman of NBC Universal from his perch running Katie Couric’s syndicated daytime show.

The 47-year-old Zucker started his first official day of work at CNN Jan. 21 by kibitzing in the Washington control room of the outlet’s live presidential inaugural coverage. He was, by most accounts, on his best behavior, mostly observing instead of ordering camera shots punctuated by shouted obscenities—his M.O. two decades ago when he was the precocious, wildly successful executive producer of NBC’s Today program.

Gone from the network they've called home, Republican Mary Matalin and Democrat James Carville. They've been a married political couple and two longtime fixtures on CNN.

The previous week at a town meeting in New York for 600 CNN employees, Zucker made it clear that one of his top priorities would be trying to fix the cable outlet’s troubled morning program, and Tuesday, he was as good as his word. Among other programming changes, former ABC White House correspondent Jake Tapper is expected to anchor the 4 p.m. slot, appropriating an hour from The Situation Room's Wolf Blitzer, and former ESPN personality Rachel Nichols will preside over a weekend sports show.

Meanwhile, attendees of Tuesday’s regular 10 a.m. news meeting on the fifth floor of the Time Warner Center found the bald-pated Zucker sitting in the captain’s chair normally occupied by CNN Managing Editor Mark Whitaker, who’d announced his resignation a couple of hours earlier.

Soledad O'Brien loses morning show.

“We have a new leader with his own forceful ideas about where to take CNN’s reporting, programming, and brand,” Whitaker wrote in a lengthy memo explaining his departure, which he and Zucker have been discussing for the past few weeks. “For him to succeed, I believe he deserves his own team and management structure and the freedom to communicate one clear vision to the staff.”

Whitaker, a former editor of Newsweek, had been part of a management triumvirate that included CNN/US President Ken Jautz, based in New York and in charge of programming, and CNN International’s Atlanta-based vice president Tony Maddox, who runs news operations. The arrangement, by many accounts, fostered conflict and confusion, with no clear lines of authority—a problem immediately solved by Zucker’s decision to run the 10 a.m. meeting for the foreseeable future. More executive departures and arrivals are in the offing, CNN insiders predicted, and Zucker will likely recruit such longtime loyalists as Michael Bass, a member of Team Zucker at NBC and currently co-executive producer of Katie.

Meanwhile, CNN’s relationship with political contributor Erick Erickson, the major domo of the right wing Red State blog, has also ended; he's jumping to Fox News. Zucker also said goodbye after 11 years to James Carville and Mary Matalin.

“It makes perfect sense to me,” said Carville, who, in a friendly phone conversation 10 days ago with Zucker, was told that CNN’s pundits will be on-camera in studios in Washington and New York instead of from remote locations like Carville and Matalin’s  New Orleans. “It’s kind of the Fox Five model," Carville said, noting that he is plenty busy with speeches and international and corporate consulting. "I’m not surprised he wants to bring in his own people. I think he has every right to.”

Some years ago, Jeff Zucker became a controversial figure in the comedy feud between Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno. When Jay Leno "retired" from The Tonight Show, Conan O'Brien became the new host. But when ratings started to sink, Zucker demanded that Jay Leno to return back to the show. That caused a major feud between O'Brien and Leno. The Tonight Show went back to Leno and O'Brien went to TBS to host his show on weeknights.

O'Brien got the support of David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel. Letterman and Kimmel continue a longstanding feud with Leno. It spawns back to when Johnny Carson retirement and NBC pushing Leno over Letterman. Letterman was hoping he'll host The Tonight Show but was passed over. Letterman left for CBS to host The Late Show. Jimmy Kimmel went on to host his show around the time at 11:35pm to compete with Letterman and Leno after his ratings improved.