Sour Lemon: CNN bans on-air drinking for New Year's Eve special

Cami Mondeaux

December 26, 10:44 PM December 26, 10:44 PM

CNN will ban its anchors from drinking alcohol on-air during the networks’ New Year’s Eve special, breaking from a yearslong tradition in an attempt to boost the station’s credibility.

Network executives announced the rule change during a meeting in mid-November, telling employees they would not be permitted to drink alcohol live on-air, with hosts Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen reportedly exempt from the rule. However, CNN President later walked back on those comments, clarifying he implied that as "a joke" and that he would prefer “no drinking on air at all,” a staffer told journalist Max Tani.

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The ban comes after years of somewhat rowdy on-air experiences from CNN hosts who were apparently inebriated, including one instance in which Don Lemon got his ear pierced on live TV after the New Year’s Eve ball dropped at midnight. Another year, the CNN host went on a rant about being a “grown-a** man” who can “share my point of view on television and it freaks people out.”

One network insider told Tani that Lemon was “not pleased” about the rule change as he is likely to be assigned to cover New Year’s Eve in New Orleans.

Cohen publicly responded to the newly implemented drinking ban shortly after it was announced, telling viewers in November that he plans to “party harder than we have ever partied before on New Year’s Eve!”

The upcoming New Year’s Eve broadcast will be CNN’s first since its former President Jeff Zucker resigned in February after failing to acknowledge a romantic relationship he had with another senior executive. Zucker was later replaced by Licht, who said he wanted to use the holiday broadcast to cast CNN as a more serious and credible network.