This week, at long last, Licht made his first additive move, albeit once again with existing parts. On Thursday, he announced that Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow, and Kaitlan Collins will anchor an entirely revamped morning news program slated to launch this fall, possibly as early as October. The show, which Licht has described perhaps too confidently as “game-changing,” will nevertheless be his most significant mark on the network to date. It is also a project that is near and dear to Licht’s heart, given his career-defining stints as executive producer of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and “CBS This Morning”—two programs that offer a template for Licht’s new CNN show and against which Lemon & Co. will compete. Licht’s stated ambition is to create “an evolved version” of NBC’s “Today” and ABC’s “Good Morning America,” but of course one must work their way out of third before thinking about competing with first. …

The new morning show, I am told, will be built around Lemon—his name may even be incorporated into the title (“Morning Don”? I doubt it)—but he will be buoyed by two notable CNN talents: Harlow, a straightforward news anchor with some caché in business journalism, and Collins, a former reporter for Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, who, in the Zucker era, quickly became a D.C. celebrity, and the network’s fastest-rising young star. This is a potentially powerful triumvirate for morning television, where personality matters above all else: a charming gay Black man who weekends in the Hamptons; a young, Columbia-and-Yale educated Midwestern mom; and an ambitious young Alabama woman with conservative roots. Add to this that the three are actual off-air friends, which is arguably essential to establishing on-air chemistry. (The three do very genuinely like each other. Fun, random fact: a decade ago Lemon flew to Slovenia for Harlow’s wedding.)

Licht hopes this new show will be a “mass appeal play.” It’s not clear that such a thing is possible for cable news in the current landscape, but given the cards in his hand, this was probably his best available move. At the very least, it will likely succeed in forcing Licht’s old friends at MSNBC to fight a little harder to protect their claim on the muted screens of midtown gyms and K Street offices.