The Triumph Boy

A triumphant move into daytime TV

By Alex Strachan, Postmedia News


This past week, Anderson Cooper's daytime talk-show was picked up for a second season -- and small wonder. Anderson is now being followed in Canada by more viewers than watch Dr. Phil, Live! With Regis and Kelly and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Photograph by: Handout, CTV2
Nobody's ever going to confuse Anderson Cooper with Oprah. Even so, the veteran combat reporter and news anchor -- five years with ABC, and another 10 with CNN -- has pulled off the improbable, if not impossible.

Anderson, his eponymous syndicated daytime talk show that bowed on Sept. 12, the day after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, is now one of daytime TV's most-watched talk shows, not just in the U.S., but here in Canada, where it's pulling in an average 469,000 viewers a day for CTV.

This past week, the program was picked up for a second season -- and small wonder. Anderson is now being followed in Canada by more viewers than watch Dr. Phil, Live! With Regis and Kelly and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Cooper, 44, isn't about to give up his night job, either. Cooper's eponymous CNN prime-time news program, AC 360, has surged 36 per cent in the ratings over the past month, according to the industry website Mediaite.com, despite CNN's moving it to an earlier time. AC 360 is winning the night twice, by drawing more viewers than MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell early in the evening, then topping MSNBC's The Ed Show during its re-airing later at night.

Cooper isn't feeling the pace yet. Nor, he insists, is he likely to in the foreseeable future. In person, he comes across as affable, if a bit guarded -- easygoing in conversation, given to occasional laughs, quick to flash in anger at a perceived injustice. If he's driven, though, he hides it well.

Numbers matter, Cooper says -- he's a professional, after all -- but the show matters more. Cooper leaves scheduling, ratings and number-crunching to his producers at Anderson and AC 360. What was important to him, when he first started taping his daytime show at Manhattan's Jazz at Lincoln Center, was that Anderson be topical, relevant and touch on something meaningful in people's everyday lives, but find time for a little lightness and laughter at the same time.

In any given week, then, Anderson can touch on topics as wide-ranging as teen bullying, reclaiming your life from an abusive spouse, people's love for their pets and second chances in life, the latter show with guests Morgan Freeman, Paula Abdul and America's Got Talent crooner, Landau Eugene Murphy Jr.

Hosting a daytime talk show is different from managing a hard-hitting nightly news roundtable discussion, but Cooper applies the same rigorous standards, self-criticism and tireless work ethic.

Cooper had an unusual childhood, by any standard: His mother is the heiress Gloria Vanderbilt; he's distantly related to Cornelius Vanderbilt, of the Vanderbilt railroad and shipping fame and fortune.

Cooper's father died when he was still a child; his older brother committed suicide while he was still in college. Shaken by his brother's death, Cooper decided to do more with his life. He faked a press pass -- "Actually, a friend of mine made a fake press pass for me," he says now -- borrowed a camera and became an unofficial war correspondent. He found himself in Somalia, during the 1993 famine and infamous Black Hawk Down incident, and ended up freelancing film footage to ABC News. His career in journalism had started.

Everything Cooper experienced in his youth shaped the TV interviewer he has become today. It's the reason, one suspects, that he can move equally comfortably between Anderson in daytime and AC 360 at night.

"I think I was really shaped by loss, by the loss of my dad when I was 10, and the suicide of my brother when I was 21 and he was 23," Cooper said quietly. "Both those things motivated me to be independent and self-reliant, to set out on my own and figure out my way in the world in a way that I thought would lead to a healthy, happier life.

"I started going to wars by myself, because I was interested in issues of survival. I wanted to be around people who spoke the language of loss. When you've experienced loss early on, you realize people often don't really want to talk about that sort of stuff. It makes people very uncomfortable."

A chance meeting with the groundbreaking Life photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks, when Cooper was just a child, cemented his interested in photojournalism from a young age.

"That's what motivated me to go to places and tell people's stories, to shine a light on people whose stories weren't being told and give a voice to people whose voices weren't being heard.

"I had the advantage of seeing celebrities as real people, and not as celebrities you see on TV. So there was no mystery to them.

"A lot of people now, I think, grow up seeing these people on TV. You think you want to be like them. But when you actually meet them, it's kind of disappointing. You realize, my God, they're just as desperate as everybody else. Especially people in movies and TV: They're always looking around to see what more famous, better paid person is about to come into the room and steal their thunder.

"It was interesting to me to watch that, but also very educational. Because early on, I realized that the people in the spotlight are just as miserable, if not more miserable, than just about everybody else. You see these people who are really creative and interesting and fascinating, but they're also driven and kind of mad and unhappy.

"Seeing that, early on, freed me from that way of thinking. Once you're not aspiring to what everybody else thinks they want to aspire to, it can be a great thing, because it frees you to pursue what you're really passionate about and interested in."

"The irony is that, by doing that, you can actually get some attention yourself, and realize a measure of success, however you define it."

Cooper, perhaps worried he was starting to sound a little grand and highfalutin', changed course.

"I was hoping you would ask a question that would let me talk about myself in the third person," he said, with a wry smile. "I haven't reached the level of ego yet where I can talk about myself in the third person, but I am so hoping I reach that stage."

He still feels energized and refreshed enough to tackle new challenges, despite juggling Anderson and AC 360.

"I'm starring in an ice show next summer, by the way," he said, without missing a beat. "I'm very excited to go on tour. It's called Anderson on Ice."

Anderson airs Monday to Friday on CTV2 at 3 p.m. ET/PT, and CTV at 5 p.m. ET/PT.