Anderson Cooper's new talk show 'Anderson' will cover wide array of topics, from celebrity to news
BY David Hinckley
Daily News Staff Writer
Thursday, July 28th 2011, 4:00 AM
BEVERLY HILLS - When Anderson Cooper's new daytime talk show debuts on Sept. 12, he says we can expect a lot of New York. But we should not expect much Sept. 11.
"We will have focused a lot on Sept. 11 in the previous week" on his nightly "Anderson 360" CNN show, Cooper told television reporters here. "My gut feeling is that Sept. 12 is not Sept. 11. It's the beginning of a new week."
Cooper and his producers are careful to stress that they aren't disregarding the continuing impact of 9/11, particularly in New York. But they say they'd rather start by giving viewers a sense of what "Anderson" will be as it goes forward - not a story they suspect will have hit its emotional peak the day before.
"We won't ever forget Sept. 11, nor should we," says producer Jim Murphy. "But there will be so much coverage of this anniversary that particularly after Sunday the 11th, I think a lot of viewers will feel a sense of finality."
"We want to distinguish this show from 'Anderson 360,'" says producer Hilary McLoughlin. "He will be doing so much there that we'll probably go in a different direction."
In the longer term, though, Murphy says New York and what New York is thinking will be "one of the central characters" in the new show.
"Most talk shows are filmed in a box without windows," he says. "They could be in New York, L.A. or Jakarta. You can't miss that this one is in the heart of New York City."
That's because, Cooper notes, it will be filmed at a studio in Lincoln Center "with a 90-foot wall of windows behind us. So you'll see New York all the time. It's the best set of any talk show anywhere."
If it's snowing at Columbus Circle, it will be snowing on the show.
"With that visual, we couldn't not engage with the city," says McLoughlin. "We'll be downstairs at the mall. We'll talk to people in the apartment buildings. We'll be on the street."
Cooper says that fits with his mission statement, which is "to use the show as a voice for people who don't have a voice."
The program won't ignore the "360" show, he says, but it will give him a chance to "do more with my wide and sometimes eccentric range of interests.
"If I'm covering the Joplin tornado, obviously there are issues that could lend themselves to the longer treatment we could give it in the daytime. But it won't be a political or a news show.
"I would hope we might have a great celebrity one day, a discussion of the news another day and some silly pop culture, too," he said.
Cooper is proud, he says, to be a fan of both "'Mad Men' and 'The Real Housewives of Atlanta' and Mariah Carey's Home Shopping Network appearance," he says, "should be required viewing for all Americans."
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