CNN Making Big Change to New Year’s Eve Broadcast

CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage will look a little different this year. As the ball drops in New York City on Dec. 31, the network’s correspondents and anchors will be banned from drinking on and off camera. Thankfully, it’s not all bad news, as Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper, whose boozy New Year’s Eve antics have become the source of numerous viral memes, are exempt from the alcohol ban.

The major change to the annual broadcast was announced during a town-hall discussion held Tuesday between CNN staffers and Chris Licht, the company’s chairman and CEO, according to Variety, Licht reportedly told employees during the meeting, during which the topic of the network’s coverage of New Year’s Eve came up, “that he felt on-camera drinking eroded the credibility of CNN personnel and damaged the ‘respectability’ they may enjoy among viewers.” Due to this, all correspondents and anchors who are not Cohen and Cooper will no longer be able to drink alcoholic beverages during the night’s coverage, whether it be in front of the camera or off the screen.

Responding to the news on Wednesday night’s episode of Watch What Happens Live, Cohen assured fans that he and Cooper will maintain their annual boozy ways as they help viewers across America ring in the new year. Addressing the reports of the alcohol ban, he hilariously yelled, “I just want you to know, Anderson and I are going to party harder than we have ever partied before on New Year’s Eve! Do you understand me?!”

“I think New Year’s Eve is a night to go hard, and I will be going hard on New Year’s Eve,” he later told Yahoo Entertainment. “I think that part of the ‘play at home’ factor of New Year’s Eve is, I think people enjoy watching me try to get Anderson plastered, and I will be. The announcement yesterday was that CNN doesn’t want their correspondents drinking on New Year’s Eve. I think that people don’t understand. I will be drinking on New Year’s Eve – just rest assured of that.”

While Licht may be concerned about the “respectability” CNN’s New Year’s Eve drinking may cause, viewers certainly seem to be enthralled by it. Over the past several years, CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage has risen to the topic of conversation on Dec. 31, with fans finding the anchors and correspondents’ antics downright hilarious. Reacting to the news that Cohen and Cooper will still be able to drink, one fan wrote, “It’s not NYE if I’m not watching Andy & Anderson drunk on CNN.”