Atlanta-based HLN used to be called Headline News and ran a 30-minute news wheel that was effective in the days before the Web provided news at your fingertips 24/7.
With ratings slipping, the network realized it had to do something else. So in 2008, it changed its name, dropping Headline News and became simply HLN, a tactic that has worked well for other cable networks. (A&E was once Arts & Entertainment, AMC was once American Movie Classics, TLC was once The Learning Channel and MTV was, of course, Music Television, many moons ago.)
With Nancy Grace as its pillar personality, the station began focusing on particular crimes and trials — usually involving attractive young woman who may or may not have killed their spouse, lover or child. Target audience: Midwestern and Southern housewives.
HLN hit a jackpot in 2011 with the Casey Anthony trial, which generated record ratings. Now it has found another bonanza of a case: Jodi Arias, accused of murdering her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander. In 2008, Alexander was found dead in his Mesa, Ariz. home with 29 stab wounds, a slit throat and a bullet through his head.
The trial, which is taking place in Phoenix, Ariz, has entered its 13th week. Arias alone spent 18 days on the stand in her own defense.
“The longer she stayed on the stand, the more she had to say and the more they had to ask,” said Scot Safon, executive vice president of HLN, which is based Atlanta. “The jury asked more than 100 questions!” (Arizona is one of only a handful of states which allows juries to query those on the stand directly.)
Ratings have steadily moved up as the story became more engrossing for a certain subset of obsessives. On March 13, when HLN debuted “HLN After Dark” with a live studio audience playing “jury” to discuss that day’s trial happenings, the network drew bigger viewership than Fox News, sister station CNN and MSNBC among 25 to 54 year olds, according to the New York Times.
HLN is always seeking intriguing stories that could sustain interest. The Arias crime has been on the network’s radar for more than a year leading up to the trial in January.
Safon notes that the Arias story is basically a local crime story with no broad impact on society, which is perhaps why few other national media outlets are paying much attention. To some degree, this leaves the field open for HLN and fellow Turner station TruTV, which recently reduced its daily Court TV vestige “In Session” from six to two hours.
“It’s not a case of who did what,” Safon said. “It’s motivations and what provoked it. That’s at the core of this.”
Arias and Alexander “had documented aspects of their relationship very thoroughly,” Safon added. “There was a lot of evidence that would bring the story to life. And in Arizona, they allow cameras in the courtroom.”
During the day, HLN has multiple experts, including Vinnie Politan and Ryan Smith, at their beck and call to cover the trial, as well as Dr. Drew Pinksy and Nancy Grace to further analyze the trial in the evening. The network even built a re-creation of Alexander’s apartment — the scene of the crime — at CNN so Politan and Smith could talk about how the murder happened while immersed in a 3-D replica. “We’re always trying to get at the story another way,” Safon said.
Jen Bernstein, the executive producer for HLN’s “Making It in America” with Politan and the new “HLN After Dark,” said staying in the courtroom “can be confining. We want to take elements of the story and bring it to life. So much of the killing centers around his bathroom, his hallway and his closet. We really struggled on how we can define that space.” And that’s how the re-creation came about.
Safon said his new boss Jeff Zucker, who took over CNN operations (which include HLN) in January, has been mentoring them. “Keep the audience engaged,” Zucker told Safon. “Make them happy they came to HLN. You’re really servicing them well with a story they love.” To Safon, “that’s been an easy mandate to follow. We’re all at heart very enthusiastic about the stories we cover.”
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