By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Mike Rowe never expected his new travelogue series “Somebody’s Gotta Do It,” to land on CNN.
Yet when you think about it, Rowe fits what has become the network’s mold for nonfiction entertainment programming: well-known personalities making series related to the work they are best known for, with a twist or two. Rowe and Lisa Ling recently joined Anthony Bourdain and John Walsh with new entries.
Rowe’s program, a key part of CNN’s strategy for the future, debuts Wednesday at 9 p.m. EDT.
“Somebody’s Gotta Do It” broadens the “Dirty Jobs” franchise that Rowe led on Discovery for eight years. He’s still looking at interesting professions, like a woman who runs a hair museum, yet not necessarily stories that require him to get down in the muck.
His debut did require submersion. He dons a wetsuit to check out the underwater set at the Las Vegas revue “La Reve.” Rowe’s style gives viewers the sense that they are eavesdropping on the making of an episode and while that showcases his charm, it also leads to unfortunate remarks about underwater urination.
CNN’s appeal was its lack of interest in plotting episodes like it was a scripted show, he said. Rowe pitched his series to many different networks and was taken aback by how many executives wanted to script what is essentially an unscripted series.
“I was getting very serious questions about narrative arcs from people I know for a fact didn’t know what that meant,” he said.
Development of nonfiction series at CNN predated network chief Jeff Zucker’s arrival, and the genre had immediate critical and commercial success with Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown.” That led Zucker to order more of them, probably his signature strategic move in two years as CNN’s leader. He expects a dozen of the limited-run series in production next year.
“It’s a really important move for the entire cable news genre … which frankly isn’t a robust, growing genre,” Zucker said. “This is one of the ways we are trying to combat that.”
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