Anderson Cooper Renews Contract With CNN (VIDEO)

Anderson Cooper has signed a new deal with CNN that will keep him at the cable news network through the 2016 presidential election, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively. The pact keeps Cooper, 46, in CNN’s nightly lineup for the foreseeable future as CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker, who in January will mark at year at the helm of the network, is expected to soon set his sights on primetime.

Cooper is the host of “AC 360,” which mixes investigative journalism with Cooper’s dry take on pop culture. In the latest quarterly ratings, Cooper’s show grew the most in CNN’s primetime lineup. It climbed 27 percent in total viewers to 707,000 versus a year ago, and was up 19 percent in the key demographic to 211,000 viewers.

Cooper also regularly reports for CBS’s “60 Minutes,” and he’s been named in the past as a potential host for shows ranging from NBC’s “Today” to “Jeopardy.”