Larry King Lecturing Piers Morgan on What Went Wrong Is Hilariously Ironic
On Wednesday, ex-CNN host Larry King took a few shots at his former employer during an appearance on Howard Stern‘s radio show. In addition to ridiculing CNN’s excessive missing MH370 coverage, King got candid in his thoughts about his failed replacement in Piers Morgan.
King described having “mixed emotions” about Morgan’s demise as CNN’s 9 p.m. host, likening it to “Your mother-in-law goes over the cliff in your new car. The mix was I thought they made a mistake in the Piers hire.” He criticized Morgan’s hosting abilities: “I thought that he made himself too much part of the show.”
“I always said, if you turn on an interview show on television, 95 percent of the time you should see the guest,” he explained. “If 95 percent of the time you see the host, there’s something wrong with that.”
Of course, Morgan lashed out in a rather predictable way:
Hey Larry @kingsthings – you don't need to KEEP bitching about me. It's over. Relax. http://t.co/RBjtF4YN1W
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 8, 2014
Always tried to be respectful to @kingsthings – but he's been a constant poisonous twerp towards me for 3 years and I'm bored with it.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 8, 2014
While we’ve done our fair share of playful Morgan-bashing here at Mediaite, allow me to defend the befallen CNN host for a moment. Face it: Larry King lecturing his replacement on what went wrong is just too rich.
Let’s take a trip back to 2010, shall we?
When Larry King Live ended, its ratings were terrible (just like Piers Morgan Live‘s upon its end). King’s continual losses to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in the 9 p.m. slot were a major factor in the left-leaning cable outlet’s move into a primetime second place ahead of CNN.
Around the time King announced the end of Larry King Live, his show had just experienced its worst quarterly ratings ever, which came after a dismal Q1 2010 — a quarter that saw a previously third-place Maddow surge ahead of King to a 58% advantage in total viewership.
Headlines about Morgan’s cancellation focused almost exclusively on his pitifully bad ratings; stories about King’s demise read the same. Both suffered from terrible ratings; both failed to compete in the 9 p.m. primetime slot.
Of course, King claimed his show’s end had nothing to do with the falling ratings. But, either way, King lecturing another cancelled cable news host on what went wrong is just precious. Only in the ego-driven industry that is cable news.
[Images via CNN]
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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
