CNN Shakes Up New Year’s Eve With Replacements for Don Lemon: Sara Sidner and Cari Champion

At least one auld acquaintance won’t be present for CNN’s annual coverage of the nation’s New Year’s Eve festivities.

Sara Sidner and Cari Champion will take over the Warner Bros. Discovery network’s wee-hours broadcast on New Year’s Eve, holding forth from Austin, Texas, during a slot that for years served as a showcase for raucous antics from Don Lemon. Lemon and CNN parted ways earlier this year after management tried to move him from a prominent primetime show to the network’s morning program.

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Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen will return as hosts of CNN’s main coverage of the evening. The broadcast will feature performances by Enrique Iglesias, Maroon 5, Jonas Brothers, Flo Rida, Miranda Lambert, Darius Rucker and Rod Stewart and live interviews with Patti Labelle, Jeremy Renner, Neil Patrick Harris, Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers.

Will alcohol be served? Imbibing has been key to the event since Cohen joined CNN’s end-of-the-year antics in 2017. Last year, however, under former chief Chris Licht, the network issued an edict that drinking on camera would not be allowed. When it comes to 2023, says a network spokesperson, “Inquiring minds will need to tune in!”

Cooper has led coverage of New Year’s Eve for CNN for more than 17 years, taking the assignment initially as a way to help viewers who may be ambivalent about the holiday. New Year’s Eve is often “too difficult, too stressful to go out. There’s something mildly depressing about it. It often ends badly for a lot of people,” Cooper told Variety in 2020. But the Times Square broadcast, he believes, can help audiences celebrate without risking a bad night. “It’s two people standing out in the cold and rain and watching things happen. Funny things happen, and plenty of things happen, and that’s it. It’s a fun night out, and that’s really all you can seek for New Year’s Eve.”

In picking Sidner and Champion, CNN is giving a spotlight to an interesting duo. Sidner’s profile at CNN has been on the rise over the past year, with the one-time veteran correspondent taking up anchoring duties at CNN’s mid-morning “News Central.” Champion had been slated to do a show for the now-shuttered CNN+ with writer Jemele Hill, but the program never got a broad airing. Champion logged a multi-year stint as a “SportsCenter” anchor for ESPN, and has taken up assignments for Vice and Amazon Prime Video since her departure from the Disney sports-media giant in 2020.

As has been the norm, Cooper and Cohen will rely on CNN correspondents reporting from celebrations across the country. Richard Quest will report from the crowds in Times Square, and Stephanie Elam will report from Atlantis, Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Randi Kaye will be stationed in Key West, Florida, while Gary Tuchman and his daughter Lindsay — who have appeared for years on CNN in tandem as part of a long-standing tradition, will report from Las Cruces, New Mexico. Boris Sanchez will be stationed in Miami, Florida.

The show will also stream live on CNN Max, the news-focused component of Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max streaming hub.

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