EXCLUSIVE: 'Spaghetti to the Wall' — CNN Stars Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper Resort to Desperate Measures in Bid to Reverse All-Time Low Ratings

CNN is seemingly trying to rebrand itself as the "Cool News Network," RadarOnline.com can reveal, debuting splashy new sets and buttoned-down hosts in an apparent attempt to recreate a podcast-studio aesthetic on basic cable.

Critics say it's not working.

The once solemn network is trying out a breezier look, with highly decorated sets, hosts sitting behind desks like on a talk show, and giant microphones that look like the ones do-it-yourself podcasters order from Amazon.

CNN's ratings have plummeted in recent years. The network has lost 40 percent of its viewers since 2017, the year Donald Trump began his first term as president, and its content has taken a noticeable partisan shift to the left.

By 2023, CNN's primetime programming hit a 33-year ratings low.

"Yikes – how desperate can you get?!" one industry insider scoffed. "CNN is clearly taking a spaghetti to the wall mentality and trying anything to get a pop in the ratings. Not sure this will do it."

Anderson Cooper rolled up his sleeves metaphorically and literally at a sprawling conference-room style desk covered in various maps and papers, apparently to give it a hectic newsroom vibe like something out of the days of Edward R. Murrow.

The new look was also lampooned by former anchor and actual podcaster Megyn Kelly on her March 23 SiriusXM show, during which she mocked CNN's "desperate ploy" to save their plummeting ratings while chatting with Piers Morgan.

"It appears they are jealous of your numbers and possibly my own. It's incredible what they are doing. They've decided that if they try to make Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper and their sets look more like they are podcasters and in digital media, people will start listening to them again," she laughed.

Meanwhile, Jake Tapper debuted his new college-radio vibe, sitting behind a desk covered in a mishmash of tchotchkes. The host chillaxed without a tie, and his collar was unbuttoned to show off his undershirt.

"So, you're probably wondering what's going on," he told viewers, before seeming to already apologize: "So, it's an experiment. This is my actual desk where I do my actual work, not the desk in the studio.

"And we thought we would bring you into the space where me and my team do our actual journalism and plan the show every day. So, here we are giving it a shot."

Again, Kelly weighed in, blasting that "Jake Tapper literally did his show from his office with his panels squeezed in on his little couch, because he says that's where they do their actual journalism."

The former Fox News host scowled as she joke CNN's famous figures were "cosplaying as podcasters."