It was announced yesterday that Jeff Zucker would take over as president of CNN Worldwide. Naturally, people want to know what he’s going to do about the company’s news channel whose overall ratings have been in a rut for the last several years.

Imagine a bolder CNN, yet with its main news talent still devoid of the right-left perspective that characterizes Fox News and MSNBC.

From Zucker’s recent interview with The Daily Beast:

Zucker said in an interview that CNN programs need “more differentiation” and “more variety, and I don’t mean that in the entertainment sense.” With CNN’s ratings rising and falling with the news cycle, Zucker said “the overriding issue is what do you do beyond the 25 days a year when there’s major breaking news?

“You don’t need to be partisan. CNN does need to stick to a nonpartisan point of view. That doesn’t mean there can’t be more passion and excitement.” …

“I don’t want to get caught in the trap of thinking that Fox and MSNBC are our principal competition … That’s way too limiting. Our competition is also Discovery, the History Channel, anyone that provides nonfiction programming.”