There’s no escaping TV presenter Piers Morgan. He’s all over London grinning at you, huge mostly, sometimes with a devil squirrel on one side of his head and a halo on the other. “Love him or hate him – but don’t miss him” is written on many posters next to it, you may love him or hate him, but you shouldn’t miss him. On the commuter rail tracks towards Waterloo station, for example, the poster is so long that from the moving train it looks as if you’ve never really seen it.
So it can’t be said that nobody noticed that Piers Morgan was back on TV. Therefore, this question arises: Why then hardly anyone switches on?
Piers Morgan himself sends links to his interviews and their supposed relevance on Twitter from time to time. In the real world beyond social media, however, Rupert Murdoch only cares about numbers, and talkTV’s numbers are abysmal. In the week that Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned and news events in England reached a peak, an average of just 43,000 people tuned in to the news channel talkTV, compared to more than 14 times for competitor and industry leader BBC News a lot of. After all, they saw Morgan moderating a show with a pig on his arm and asking Boris Johnson to resign. Johnson was repeatedly referred to in the British tabloid media as a “greased piglet”, as a greasy piglet that slipped away from its butcher.
Rupert Murdoch, the 91-year-old media mogul, started talkTV at the end of April because he apparently believed the country needed another Fox News copy: a channel for the more right-wing, conservative target group of the-will-you-yes -probably-may-say-people. He hired Piers Morgan as the face of the station, because Morgan is one of the most well-known television characters in the country and he is also a columnist for the Murdoch papers The Sun and New York Post. His salary is reported to be £50million over three years.
Tabloid reporters eavesdropped on celebrities’ phones? Piers Morgan denies everything
Murdoch obviously relied on Morgan’s polarizing effect, the two know each other from before. In the 1990s, Morgan, then 29, was editor-in-chief of Murdoch’s paper News of the World, whose sometimes criminal methods meant that Murdoch later had to close the paper. Morgan had already moved on to the DailyMirror, where he was involved in a wiretapping scandal that outraged the country in the 2000s. At the time, British tabloid reporters tapped dozens of celebrity phones, and Morgan has denied any involvement to this day.
Morgan’s show “Uncensored” claims to tell nothing but the unprotected truth, in the opening credits a brain turns in which supposedly censored regions light up. Piers Morgan says what the oh-so left-leaning and “woke” society no longer allows, that’s the message. The concept is simple, Morgan talks to all sorts of guests, and the station benefits from its good contacts in the world of showbiz. He did the opening show with Donald Trump, Morgan provoked Trump so specifically that he left the studio for a moment.
Otherwise, Morgan speaks almost exclusively to his guests via video switching, as is customary throughout the station. There is talk throughout, the program essentially consists of a series of talk shows, with the broadcast being cross-platform. That means: The programs are broadcast via app, radio and TV, which is why the moderators in most shows sit in a simple studio with a radio microphone and wear headphones.
The concept hardly differs from its competitor GB News, which went on the air just over a year ago. The fact that both channels address the same and rather small target group does not make things any easier for talkTV. There have even been days in the past few months when, according to official measurements, nobody tuned in for hours, in fact: zero viewers. The fact that former right-wing politician Nigel Farage, brought in by GB News, regularly beats Morgan in the odds tables should also annoy Morgan in the long term.
In the major British newspapers, the lines between journalism and party organs are sometimes blurred
The British media landscape is a dense market, with several all-day news channels, plus newspapers and magazines covering every political spectrum. The larger newspapers in particular often position themselves so clearly politically that the boundaries between journalism and party organs sometimes become blurred. In particular, the more right-wing conservative-oriented and “anti-woke” audience relevant to talkTV gets about in the high-circulation Daily Mail new input every day, albeit without regard to its truthfulness.
Murdoch, who once shook up the British television market with Sky, is a successful businessman who has not exactly been known for his considerate behavior. At the end of June he flew to London to get an idea of the situation, which is said to have caused some excitement at the station. He hired the former editor-in-chief of the DailyMirrorRobert Wallace, as the new station boss, and brought in employees from his US station Fox News to provide assistance.
Of the Guardians recently reported that both broadcasters are in the red, making their future uncertain. One of GB News’ main investors, US group Discovery, is said to be considering an exit. And that, in turn, leads to rumors that Murdoch might consider simply buying out GB News.
Meanwhile, Morgan himself tries to save what can be saved. He recently made several posts in a row on Twitter, addressed to several prominent politicians, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, ex-Finance Minister Rishi Sunak and State Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg. He accused everyone of not having come to his show despite personal promises, and he hereby offers to make up for it. To Rees-Mogg Morgan wrote that he promised Rees-Mogg he would be on the show at a recent party “before your mother” and that knowing he, Rees-Mogg, is being honest, he’s looking forward to his coming. To Johnson Morgan wrote that he had promised him an interview for seven years now, but like so many other promises, he didn’t keep it either. He has nothing to do but “squat around in No. 10”.
“Desperate”, in desperation, wrote many of Morgan’s followers under the posts. That might not be entirely wrong, although Morgan’s desperation is understandable. Just a few weeks ago, just before Murdoch arrived in London, Morgan’s show drew fewer viewers than a 1970s sitcom rerun.