Just 10 minutes into the second half-hour of “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” last night, CNN ran a sponsored-segment advertisement for the show that previously inhabited the 6:30p.m. timeslot.
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“Crossfire, brought to you by Tempur-pedic,” the ad said with the Crossfire logo at the bottom of the screen. The only problem: Crossfire hasn’t aired since the middle of July, after it was yanked from the schedule in favor of breaking news of downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
“Crossfire is still on extended hiatus,” a CNN spokesperson told TheWrap.
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Three months is an unusually long hiatus in the TV news world, especially for a network’s signature political debate program three weeks in advance of the midterm elections. The show’s co-hosts–Newt Gingrich, S.E. Cupp, Van Jones, and Stephanie Cutter–have periodically appeared as guests on other CNN programming as their show remains off-air.