CNN gets into lifestyles

And not just any old lifestyles. A new program coming to the pioneering cable news franchise will be delving into the lives of “neighbors” who appear normal but who in fact are not what they seem.

The show is called “This is Life” and it is the creation of lifestyle coach Lisa Ling. It looks at the seemingly average people living among us who in fact are engaged in highly unusual activities.

Ling actually considers herself to be a specialist in the “sugar baby” lifestyle, helping clients find “…mentorship, guidance and financial support from caring sugar daddies.”

“Lisa is a seasoned reporter with an unbelievable ability to connect with the people she interviews, issues she examines and the audience she enlightens. CNN is thrilled to have her compelling and fearless storytelling as part of our Original Series line-up,” said Amy Entelis, senior vice president of talent and content development for CNN Worldwide.

The series kicks off Sunday 9/28/14 at 10PM E/P.

RBR-TVBR observation: We are not in the habit of critiquing program decisions, but we would like to make a point. There are times when we are aware that news is breaking, and we head to our television set to see if we can find out what’s going on. It’s quite disconcerting to go to a news channel and find that it’s behaving like A&E or MTV.

And what about A&E? Doesn’t that name suggest a commercial cable alternative to PBS? Isn’t that in fact what the channel started out to be? Maybe a name change is in order.

Both my wife and I were there at the dawn of MTV. It no longer deserves that name either.

So even though this show will be on an off hour – admittedly the chances of us tuning in CNN to check out the news at the time this show is on are slim – still, we would go there for news, not a lifestyle show.

In the radio biz, running “This is Life” on CNN would be called breaking format. We can understand why a producer/distributor may want to do this. Our only advice is to do so with caution. You may pick up some viewers who happen on to the program at this unlikely location, but it just might exasperate those of us looking for CNN News that you lose us to somebody else.