It's Becoming Clear That CNN Boss Jeff Zucker Is, In Fact, Exactly What The Network Needed

Charles Dharapak/APGo ahead and laugh: He knows what you want to watch!

Hre at Business Insider, we have TVs hanging all over the newsroom, and for the last few days, the one across from me has been showing CNN.

As a result, I can tell you that CNN is, in fact, covering the missing-Malaysian-Airlines-plane story pretty much non-stop.

Oh, they break occasionally to other news. Yesterday, for a few minutes, after threatening to lose viewers by covering a boring 5.1 earthquake in Los Angeles, they were showing a big diagram of a possible "Killer Quake" to come. But after that, it was right back to the plane.

The network uses the "DEVELOPING STORY" graphic a lot, often while reporting facts that were first reported a few days ago. But every few minutes, the CNN host-0f-the-hour interviews another expert about those facts, so the story is indeed "developing."

Given that the Malaysia plane disappeared three weeks ago, it always startles me to see that CNN is still covering nothing but the plane story, especially with so little new information to report.

But this, I am coming to understand, is why Jeff Zucker, CNN's new boss, was such a great hire for the network - and why he is so renowned for his programming acumen.

CNN's ratings have gone to the moon since Zucker decreed that the network cover nothing but "The Mystery Of Flight 370."

CNN owns the plane story. And CNN has apparently surmised - almost certainly correctly - that the plane story is much more interesting, mysterious, and terrifying to viewers than just about any other dime-a-dozen story CNN could be covering.

Given the ratings boost CNN is enjoying, the wall-to-wall plane coverage now seems like a no-brainer. But to dismiss it as such is to ignore the catcalls and scoffing Mr. Zucker and his network have been subjected to by the Twitter-based media elite in the weeks since the network became The Plane Channel.

The media snobs on Twitter hate CNN's plane coverage. They hate it as much as they hated "The DaVinci Code," "The Firm," "Iron Man," and other massively popular commercial successes that normal people love. They love to tweet about how appalled they are, and how embarrassing CNN's plane obsession is.

But their snootiness only goes to show, again, that Mr. Zucker is exactly what CNN needed:

A boss who knows what normal CNN viewers want - and the boldness to give it them.

SEE ALSO: This Is Still The Most Plausible Theory About What Happened To The Malaysia Plane