2:49 p.m. | Updated
Mike Lawrie/Getty ImagesAnthony Bourdain appeared this month at the Great Googa Mooga at Prospect Park.Anthony Bourdain is about to take a television trip.
The chef and author will host a weekend program on CNN beginning early next year, once his shows for the Travel Channel end, CNN announced on Tuesday. CNN said in a news release that the program “will be shot on location and examine cultures from around the world through their food and dining and travel rituals.” Mr. Bourdain will also be a commentator on CNN’s channels in the United States and elsewhere.
“Tony Bourdain has taken audiences on journeys throughout the world as he brings not just information on food, but cultural and societal insights as well, providing audiences with a rich and thoughtful experience,” Mark Whitaker, the executive vice president and managing editor for CNN Worldwide, said in an internal memorandum on Tuesday morning. “Tony is a great addition to CNN’s team as we continue to broaden our coverage of news that impacts our audience’s lifestyles.”
Mr. Bourdain has been the host of “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” for the Travel Channel since 2005. He began a second show, “The Layover,” for the channel last winter. “The Layover” has been renewed for one more season, but “No Reservations,” which wraps up its eighth season this week, has not. Mr. Bourdain will be leaving the Travel Channel after his obligations for this season are complete, but the channel can keep replaying old episodes.
In a statement, a Travel Channel spokesperson said, “As part of Travel Channel’s strategic repositioning of the brand and its core programming mission, the network has been aggressively developing new talent, new voices and new shows, as announced last year,” adding that Mr. Bourdain “has been an iconic figure at Travel Channel.” The statement concluded: “We are proud of the great storytelling Tony has brought to the network. We congratulate him on his new venture and look forward to working with him on new projects in the future.”
The poaching of Mr. Bourdain comes at a time when CNN is trying to turn around its slumping ratings — now at historic lows. In a change of direction earlier this year, the channel laid off some of its documentary producers and started acquiring documentaries and commissioning series from outside producers. It will schedule the acquired programming mostly on the weekends, when it has fewer hours of live news. That Mr. Bourdain’s as-yet-untitled program will be produced by the makers of “No Reservations,” Zero Point Zero Production, is a sign of that new thinking.
CNN described the addition of Mr. Bourdain’s program as a “further step in broadening and distinguishing CNN’s weekend programming from its traditional weekday news coverage.” To longtime CNN watchers, it may seem a back to the future move, because the network used to have lifestyle shows like “Style With Elsa Klensch,” “People in the News” and “Your Health” on the weekends. Those shows, however, were mostly produced in house.
CNN said that new episodes of Mr. Bourdain’s program would be shown in prime time on Sundays and then repeated the following Saturday. The episodes will also be shown on CNN International.
The network emphasized Mr. Bourdain’s international credentials in its announcement on Tuesday, describing him as a reporter who has traveled to “historically war-torn or isolated regions as Vietnam, Mozambique, Uzbekistan and Romania,” among many other locales.
In a statement, Mr. Bourdain said, “I’m really looking forward to coming over to CNN. I think the world is going to get a whole lot bigger for me. I hope that old fans and new ones will be excited about what’s coming down the road.”