Some good news on the Sunday TV front. It looks like Christiane Amanpour may be out as host of ABC's "This Week."
Like everyone else in America, I've never understood why ABC tapped someone with her resume for a political talk show. The idea, I guess, was to add a foreign-affairs dimension to Sunday morning yakfests, but that's kind of like hiring a business reporter to anchor SportsCenter. Sure, there's some subject-matter overlap, but nobody's watching SC for a panel discussion on revenue sharing or the salary cap. And even if a crisis overseas blows up and dominates the U.S. news cycle, what special insight is Amanpour supposedly bringing to “This Week” by dint of her experience as a correspondent?
That's way overthinking it. The Sunday talk shows aren't just about discussions of current events. People tune in to see those events discussed by personalities, and Christiane Amanpour has a terrible personality. I can't stand her voice and its weird accent or her affected mannerisms like those wildly waving hands. Yeech. Some things have annoyed over the years about "This Week," but not to the point where I wouldn't watch it -- until she came along.
