Posted on 05/27/2010 1:40:59 PM PDT by lbryce
The biggest interview on television last week, with the Senate candidate Rand Paul, happened at 9 p.m. But regrettably for CNN’s Larry King, who used to rule that time slot by wooing newsmakers, the interview was booked by his higher-rated competitor, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Next week will be Mr. King’s 25th year on CNN, but these are hard days for the host, and not just because he is being beaten in ratings and bookings.
Although still the linchpin of CNN’s lineup, he has come to embody an enormous problem facing the cable news channel. How can he and CNN compete in prime time when viewers seem to crave partisan political programs and when prominent guests — the lifeblood of Mr. King’s show — would rather burnish their images on other channels?
So far, CNN cannot compete. “Larry King Live” is now struggling in the ratings, as is CNN as a whole. The ratings for the new “John King, USA” political show at 7 p.m. have been disappointing, and Campbell Brown announced last week that she was quitting her 8 p.m. show after concluding that her newscast could not compete with the bombastic opinion-oriented shows on Fox News and MSNBC.
Ratings for Mr. King, 76, are about 20 percent better than those of his lead-in, Ms. Brown, but he ranks a distant third behind the conservative Sean Hannity on Fox and the liberal Ms. Maddow. His audience has been cut in half since the last presidential election, to an average of just 725,000 viewers a night.
CNN executives will not say whether they will renew Mr. King’s contract when it ends next year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Larry's toast.
Hey Abb add to your ping list
Higher rated, LMAO! That's like saying I'm going to Hardee’s instead of Sonic! His mistake was he didn't go to McDonald's (FOX)!
Their only option is to go after MSNBC’s market share. Put out more shows like Crossfire. They can fight for second place.
I wonder how the forums would respond to seeing FOX hire Campbell Brown, and giving her the 7 PM hour?
It would get liberals to tune in...some may stay and get converted. It would also demonstrate ‘fair and balanced’.
NOT!!
The old buzzard hasn’t been relevant for decades.
So . . .
Basically this is about whether the vultures or the jackals get the lion’s table scraps.
Do I have this right? That what was once called the ‘MSM’ is now on a scavenger ecology, and no longer are predators?
Larry “Stin” King needs to wrap it up.
And give the 8 PM hour to Laura Ingraham or Megan Kelly.
Gee.....who on earth can CNN hire to fill Larry’s shoulder pads?
The other night King had a show about the oil spill. The guests he had on the show to talk about the oil spill?......Bill Nye the Science Guy, the deuchebag captain from “the Deadliest Catch,” and Ted Danson. Not exactly a bunch of heavy hitters.
<The guests he had on the show to talk about the oil spill?......Bill Nye the Science Guy, the deuchebag captain from “the Deadliest Catch,” and Ted Danson. Not exactly a bunch of heavy hitters.
Boy, are you kidding? I used to listen to King off and on when he was on the radio. He seemed proud of telling guests who were on for their book tour that he never read the books beforehand. I thought, what an idiot. I don’t expect him to read every guest’s book cover to cover, but not to have read anything or picked something interesting or controversial from the book just seemed lazy to me.
My big claim to fame is that I got to talk to Ernest Thomas (’Raj’ from ‘What’s Happening!’) when he was a guest.
Not going to happen. BOR is king.
And he stresses nightly how ‘objective’ and neutral he is.
ping
How depressing, to be beat out by the likes of Maddow. Basically the ratings for any non-Fox News show are dismal. CNN and MSNBC are like post-earthquake dogs in Haiti fighting over fly-ridden scraps.
I don’t think they can afford Larry. It’s just that simple.
And MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow? I suspect by next summer that she’ll be given some walking papers.
You can only charge what the advertisers feel is responsible. If folks aren’t watching your show....then there’s no profit. Face it...Larry is probably not going to work for half of what he makes today.
Yes, we don’t watch Megan Kelly. That’s our time slot for “Rush and we don’t give him up for anything. However, we are so sorry Megan left Fox morning with Bill Hemmer. They made a great team. Intelligent, informed, serious, funny as well and credible. I thought from what they were saying when they announced Megan’s new show that it was going to be something spectacular. Turns out it is just another hour or so of old news that we heard from the show before that one and the one before that. Also, her set background looks like she is hosting a holiday parade or something like Thanksgiving or Christmas.
I love Megan but do not like nor watch her new timeslot. Hopefully, she’ll get something better.
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