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''Early Start'' is an American news morning television show on CNN and also broadcast on
CNN International CNN International (CNNI, simply branded on-air as CNN) is an international television channel that is owned by CNN Global. CNN International carries news-related programming worldwide; it cooperates with sister network CNN's national and inter ...
. It premiered on January 2, 2012. Anchored by Christine Romans since 2014, the program airs weekdays from 5:00-6:00 a.m. ET.


History

By the end of its run in 2011, CNN's ''American Morning'' had fallen behind in the morning ratings. Executive vice president
Ken Jautz Ken Jautz serves as executive vice president, CNN-US, responsible for HLN, as well as group operations, business affairs and the Newsource affiliate service. Jautz, a longtime CNN and Turner Broadcasting executive, has managed several networks, ...
, who joined in September 2010, decided to revamp the network's morning lineup by canceling the show altogether and replacing it with two new programs less focused on national politics than cable rivals ''
Fox & Friends ''Fox & Friends'' is an American daily morning news and talk program that airs on Fox News. It premiered on February 1, 1998, and is currently hosted by Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade on weekdays. Will Cain, Rachel Campos- ...
'' and ''
Morning Joe ''Morning Joe'' is an American morning news and liberal talk show, airing weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time on the cable news channel MSNBC. It features former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough reporting and discu ...
''. Along with '' Starting Point'', ''Early Start'' replaced ''
American Morning ''American Morning'' was an American three-hour morning television news program that aired on CNN from 2001 to 2011. ''American Morning'' debuted with anchors Paula Zahn and Anderson Cooper on the day after the September 11 attacks, five months ...
'', which aired from 2001 to 2011.
Ashleigh Banfield Ashleigh Dennistoun Banfield (born December 29, 1967) is a Canadian- American journalist and host of ''Banfield'' on the NewsNation network. She is a former host of ''Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield'' and ''Early Start'' on CNN. Education ...
, who co-anchored with Sambolin until July 13, 2012, has since moved to the 12pm timeslot. The new morning lineup was announced in November 2011 with
Ashleigh Banfield Ashleigh Dennistoun Banfield (born December 29, 1967) is a Canadian- American journalist and host of ''Banfield'' on the NewsNation network. She is a former host of ''Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield'' and ''Early Start'' on CNN. Education ...
and Zoraida Sambolin confirmed as anchors of the 5-7 a.m. program, while
Soledad O'Brien María de la Soledad Teresa O'Brien (born September 19, 1966) is an American broadcast journalist and executive producer. Since 2016, O'Brien has been the host for ''Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien,'' a nationally syndicated weekly talk show ...
joined as anchor of the 7-9 a.m. program. Banfield joined from
ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast '' ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include morning news-talk show '' Good Morning America'', '' ...
while Sambolin was hired from
WMAQ-TV WMAQ-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Telemundo outlet WSNS-TV (c ...
. The name of the 5-7 a.m. program was announced as ''Early Start'' on
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
on December 29. The program was subtitled ''News From A to Z'', a reference to the first initials of the show's original co-anchors. On May 30, 2012, CNN announced ABC's John Berman would join Banfield and Sambolin as co-anchor. On June 26, 2012, CNN announced Banfield was leaving ''Early Start'' in July to anchor the 11am hour of ''
CNN Newsroom ''CNN Newsroom'' (also simply known as ''Newsroom'') is an American news programming block that airs on CNN. Broadcasting for 43 hours each week, ''Newsroom'' features live and taped news reports, in addition to analysis from experts on the iss ...
''. On December 13, 2013, Zoraida Sambolin left the show and was replaced by Christine Romans in January 2014. There was also a weekend broadcast from 6-7 a.m. ET, and was alternated between Poppy Harlow, Miguel Marquez, Alison Kosik, Randi Kaye and Victor Blackwell. It merely served as a lead-in to the subsequent five-hour ''CNN Newsroom'', both anchored by the same host or duo. On June 22, 2013, due to the launch of New Day, it was decided that ''Weekend Early Start'' would be cancelled in favor of ''New Day Saturday'' and ''New Day Sunday'', which would respectively run for 3½ and 3 hours on their respective days. First weekend edition of New Day aired on that same day. Early Start continues on weekdays. One week leading up to the 2016 United States presidential election, ''Early Start'' ran from 3am to 5am ET, followed by an extended version of ''New Day'' from 5am to 9am ET. This schedule then becomes a standard for CNN during breaking news events. In January 2017, John Berman left the program to anchor ''CNN Newsroom'' at 9am ET. CNN announced Dave Briggs, formerly of
NBC Sports NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its ...
and
Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is o ...
, would succeed him. In December 2019, Briggs signed off from co-hosting the program. The next month, in January 2020, Laura Jarrett became the new co-host. In mid-2020 the program was reduced in length and now runs for one hour, starting at 5am ET. On July 1, 2022, Laura Jarrett co-anchored ''Early Start'' for the last time before having a baby, leaving Romans as the program's sole host.


Notable moments

On the January 9, 2012 edition of the show, Banfield and Sambolin attempted to call comedian Chuck Nice as part of the "Wake 'Em Up" segment. Instead, the show dialed the wrong number and woke up an unknown man. The episode was skewered by
Jon Stewart Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz; November 28, 1962) is an American comedian, political commentator, and television host. He hosted '' The Daily Show'', a satirical news program on Comedy Central, from 1999 to 2015 and now hosts '' ...
on ''
The Daily Show ''The Daily Show'' is an American late-night talk and satirical news television program. It airs each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central with release shortly after on Paramount+. ''The Daily Show'' draws its comedy and satire form fr ...
'', who also mocked the format of the segment.


On-air staff

*
Ashleigh Banfield Ashleigh Dennistoun Banfield (born December 29, 1967) is a Canadian- American journalist and host of ''Banfield'' on the NewsNation network. She is a former host of ''Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield'' and ''Early Start'' on CNN. Education ...
(January 2 – July 13, 2012) *
Rob Marciano Robert Mark Marciano (born June 25, 1968) is an American journalist and meteorologist who is currently employed by ABC News. Marciano provides forecasts for the weekend editions of ''Good Morning America'', a position Ginger Zee vacated when sh ...
(January 2 – December 21, 2012) * Zoraida Sambolin (January 2, 2012 – December 13, 2013) * John Berman (July 17, 2012 – February 16, 2017) * Christine Romans (January 2014 – present) * Dave Briggs (February 18, 2017 – December 20, 2019) * Laura Jarrett (January 2, 2020 – July 1, 2022)


Recurring segments

*CNN Business Now (formerly CNN Money Stream): The latest business headlines from
CNN Business CNN Business (formerly CNN Money) is a financial news and information website, operated by CNN. The website was originally formed as a joint venture between CNN.com and Time Warner's ''Fortune'' and ''Money'' magazines. Since the spin-off of Tim ...
* The Bleacher Report: A round-up of sports news at approximately 20 past the hour *3 questions in 3 minutes: In which each journalist answers three political questions in three minutes


References


External links

* {{Commons category, Early Start 2012 American television series debuts 2010s American television news shows 2020s American television news shows CNN original programming English-language television shows