Morgan quits Talktv over lacklustre ratings
Presenter will publish his celebrity interviews on Youtube after viewership lagged behind rivals
PIERS MORGAN is leaving television and heading to Youtube, saying that his nightly Talktv show has been a “straitjacket” with lacklustre viewing figures.
Piers Morgan Uncensored has attracted some of the biggest names in politics and entertainment, beginning with a Donald Trump interview for the launch programme.
This week he interviewed Rishi Sunak, and made headlines by persuading the Prime Minister to bet on flights to Rwanda leaving before the election.
However, viewer ratings for the daily 8pm slot are small – the Sunak interview was watched by barely 50,000 viewers on television, but has been viewed 335,000 times on Youtube.
Morgan announced that he will make the show Youtube-only, in a move that will raise questions about the future of Rupert Murdoch’s Talktv. He is the station’s star name.
He said that the decision was his own, although Mr Murdoch is said to have been equally displeased with Morgan’s ratings – the presenter was reportedly being paid £50 million over three years for work across News UK outlets. Morgan joined Talktv after quitting ITV’S
Good Morning Britain in a row over the Duchess of Sussex, and before that left CNN after audiences were turned off by his championing of gun control.
Morgan told the Semafor website: “I’ve just decided that I no longer want to create my show for linear television – I just want to go full digital globally.
“There’s something quite anachronistic about a show like mine still trying to create old-fashioned TV for a pre-scheduled time slot each night for a relatively small audience – when we’re getting such gigantic audiences digitally.
“The frustration for me has been continuing to create a Tv-format show when that’s not how 95 per cent of my audience is watching it.”
Morgan told The Times: “It’s clear there’s a huge global demand for the content we’re making, but the commitment to a daily show at a fixed schedule, with all the editing and time sensitivities that involves, has been an unnecessary straitjacket.
“People are watching the content on Youtube rather than conventional television and I have no problem with that.”
The Piers Morgan Uncensored channel on Youtube has 2.35 million subscribers.
His recent interview with Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef, regarding the Israel-hamas conflict, has had 22 million views after going viral on social media, while other popular interviews include Andrew Tate (14 million views), Kanye West (8.7 million) and Cristiano Ronaldo (5.7 million).
The Youtube move will allow Morgan to do more expansive interviews and not be constrained by an hour-long running time, he said.
“I could happily interview Elon Musk for three or four hours tomorrow and the audience would lap it up. But the nightly restriction of having to go into a studio at 8pm when sometimes there is nothing happening and literally fill time? Nobody wants that.”
The Piers Morgan Uncensored channel is co-owned by Wake Up Productions, Morgan’s product.
Talktv launched in April 2022 but has struggled to get a foothold in the market, despite its expensive production values. A revamp last year which put Julia Hartley-brewer, Mike Graham and Jeremy Kyle into prime slots has failed to revive interest.
Viewing figures have lagged well behind rivals including GB News and there has been speculation that Mr Murdoch could pull the plug.