The Other McCain

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Good-Bye, and Good Riddance: @PiersMorgan Canned at CNN

Posted on | February 23, 2014 | 38 Comments

First smart move that network has made in years:

CNN President Jeff Zucker has decided to bring an end to Piers Morgan’s low-rated primetime show, network sources told POLITICO on Sunday. “Piers Morgan Live” could end as early as next month, though Morgan may stay with the network in another role.
Morgan, a former British tabloid editor, replaced Larry King in the 9 p.m. hour three years ago, prior to Zucker’s tenure as president. His show earned consistently low ratings, registering as few as 50,000 viewers in the 25-to-54 year-old demographic earlier this week.
“CNN confirms that Piers Morgan Live is ending,” Allison Gollust, head of CNN communications, told POLITICO on Sunday after an earlier version of this post was published. “The date of the final program is still to be determined.”
Morgan told The New York Times on Sunday that the show had “run its course” and that he and Zucker “have been talking for some time about different ways of using me.” Sources who spoke to POLITICO said the decision to end the show was Zucker’s.

Here’s your chicken-and-egg paragraph:

Despite low ratings, Morgan drew national attention for his aggressive pro-gun-control campaign in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Morgan addressed the issue nightly for several weeks in late 2012 and early 2013 and hosted fiery, combative interviews with pro-gun adovcates like Alex Jones, a conservative conspiracy theorist.

Do think maybe the “low ratings” and the “aggressive pro-gun-control campaign” had something to do with each other? And do you think that maybe booking a dangerous kook like Alex Jones was related to both the low ratings and the anti-gun agenda?

By the way, I resent Politico applying the “conservative” label to Alex Jones. “Lunatic” is not a political ideology.

 

Category: CNN

Comments

38 Responses to “Good-Bye, and Good Riddance: @PiersMorgan Canned at CNN”

  1. Mike G.
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 8:51 pm

    Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  2. richard mcenroe
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 8:52 pm

    was he here on a work visa? just wondering..

  3. Political Rift » Good-Bye, and Good Riddance: @PiersMorgan Canned at CNN
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 8:55 pm

    […] Robert Stacy McCain First smart move that network has made in years: CNN President Jeff Zucker has decided to bring an […]

  4. Funeral guy
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 9:00 pm

    Wouldn’t it be funny if on his last day, Piers Morgan went postal and shot up the place before meekly surrendering himself to the only people that (in his mind) should have guns. Now that would be a trial worth watching!

  5. RufusChoate
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 9:08 pm

    One issue killed Piers Morgan’s ratings and it should be instructive for the rest of the Media: Gun Control. Coming from a citizen of a nation that required American blood and treasure twice to protect it was just too much to ask.

  6. WarEagle82
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 9:12 pm

    “CNN confirms that Piers Morgan Live is ending…”

    “Live” and not “LIFE”. Made me do a double-take there.

    Is it possible that reality is intruding its ugly head in the liberal networks? Since when has low ratings been enough to get left-wing kooks fired?

    And since when is Alex “Conspiracy” Jones a conservative? Like you said, “lunatic” is not a political ideology except for left-wing idiots…

  7. K-Bob
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 9:49 pm

    If CNN were smart, they’d bet on a major shift in politics after barack exits office in disgrace. They’d improve the bottom line hugely by hiring someone like Daniel Hanan.

  8. Zohydro
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 10:07 pm

    Adiós… au revoir…auf Wiederseeeeeeh’n!

  9. Piers Morgan to quit rating failure CNN show
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 10:20 pm

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  10. postaldog
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 10:21 pm

    “… though Morgan may stay with the network in another role.”

    Hopefully scrubbing toilets, that’s all he’s qualified for.

  11. richard mcenroe
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 10:24 pm

    Zucker is determined to turn CNN into another reality-show farm like the History Channel and has said as much.

  12. richard mcenroe
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 10:25 pm

    As a bad example, and warning to others?

  13. K-Bob
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 10:48 pm

    Like that’s going to play well in airports.

    Weird.

  14. Good Stuff
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 11:03 pm

    Does CNN know something we don’t? – Morgan had written in his published diaries about a “little trick” for eavesdropping on voicemails that he heard of as early as 2001, and in an interview with the Press Gazette industry magazine in 2007 he described phone-hacking as “an investigative practice that everyone know was going on at almost every paper in Fleet Street for years”.

  15. Mike G.
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 11:13 pm

    Well, they got the “Hack” part right.

  16. cmdr358
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 11:17 pm

    Penguins, Orcas, travelogues, cooking shows…. it’s all fascinating stuff.
    It’ll be perfect for emergency room waiting areas, the DMV and …that’s about it I guess.

  17. Wombat_socho
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 11:23 pm

    Actually, if we ever see him again (the literal meaning of auf Wiedersehen) it would be far too soon.

  18. Zohydro
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 11:40 pm

    His interview with Janet (né Charles) Mock may actually have been the straw that broke the camel’s back here…

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/02/07/_piers_morgan_s_janet_mock_interview_why_journalists_get_coverage_of_the.html

  19. Zohydro
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 11:43 pm

    “Au revoir” too!

  20. Funeral guy
    February 24th, 2014 @ 1:23 am

    FTA: Why do mainstream journalists so often screw up interviews with trans people?

    This is the first sentence in your link. Which begs the question, “Why do we need so many interviews with these sad, confused deviants?” Reading the post it’s hard not to laugh at people like Piers Morgan and Katie Couric as political correctness causes their heads to explode? What else are you going to ask these Lady-Boys (or Boy-Ladies as the case may be)? The only thing vaguely interesting about these people are the sideshow aspects of their lives. “How did it feel to lose your penis?” “Did you ever have normal sex when you were a boy?”

    Outside of that these freaks take up too much time as it is.

  21. Adjoran
    February 24th, 2014 @ 3:39 am

    If anything, his anti-gun agenda helped his ratings, which were never any good, by attracting conservatives waiting to catch his next outrageous lie.

    CNN is afraid he will be charged and convicted in the UK hacking scandal. If low ratings mattered, he would have out long ago.

  22. Adjoran
    February 24th, 2014 @ 3:40 am

    Doubt it. Would YOU use a toilet he had scrubbed?

    “exploring new roles” means “we’re canning the bastard but letting him save some face as he goes out the door.”

  23. Adjoran
    February 24th, 2014 @ 3:41 am

    I thought that was his current position?

  24. Adjoran
    February 24th, 2014 @ 4:37 am

    Apparently the big hacking “secret” was that most celebrities never bothered to change the default password for accessing their voicemail from a remote number. Morgan not only knew about it, he taught the reporters under his editorship how to do it, and at least one has offered sworn statements to that effect, according to reports from the UK.

    In his interview with investigators, he reportedly denied everything. So he may be going away for a unplanned paid vacation, and CNN prefers to get him off the air before the embarrassment.

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  26. WarEagle82
    February 24th, 2014 @ 6:48 am

    Who is going to break the news to both of this viewers? I am sure they will be devastated…

  27. Fred Beloit
    February 24th, 2014 @ 9:39 am

    Goodbye funny man. We’ll probably see you again on MSNBC, all four of us:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHcunREYzNY

  28. cmehusky
    February 24th, 2014 @ 11:40 am

    Now on to Madcow!

  29. RufusChoate
    February 24th, 2014 @ 12:16 pm

    Maybe but I was fully informed of all of his comments from the Conservative Websites and never watched his show. I am unsure about his culpability in the Phone hacking scandal but you might be right. .

  30. Finrod Felagund
    February 24th, 2014 @ 12:36 pm

    I think he would be useful if they set up a dunk tank in the atrium and needed a dummy to sit on the hot seat.

  31. Quartermaster
    February 24th, 2014 @ 12:49 pm

    Piers who?

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  33. Adobe_Walls
    February 24th, 2014 @ 5:15 pm

    I’m not convinced ratings have anything to do with it. Though he never shed a light (on anything), he did generate some heat. He’s not being canned he’s just being reassigned. Which doesn’t necessarily mean working for CNN

  34. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 24th, 2014 @ 8:03 pm

    http://batshitcrazynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Screen-Shot-2014-02-23-at-7.03.24-PM.png

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