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If Piers Morgan Can’t Do It …
Somewhat overshadowed by the news that Stephen Colbert will be replacing David Letterman next year, CNN President Jeff Zucker announced today that his network is giving up on the primetime talk show format (this is how completely snakebit Zucker is — he even gets outprogrammed when announcing business decisions).
The time slot formerly occupied by Larry King and then Piers Morgan will now belong to unscripted series helmed by the likes of Mike Rowe and John Walsh.
Zucker’s explanation, per the Hollywood Reporter:
“We believe that genre is no longer viable. There are just too many outlets with not enough big gets for a pure talk show to thrive any longer,” Zucker told advertisers gathered at Chelsea’s Skylight Modern for the network’s first upfront presentation.
Maybe.
Or maybe a Tourette’s-addled owl and a vainglorious college freshman home for Thanksgiving break aren’t representative of the format at its apotheosis.
I’m willing to consider either option.
Published in General
Is there something wrong with Mike Rowe?
Troy, do I detect the bitterness of an addicted viewer? There are 12 step programs, I’m sure.
Reruns of Cagney and Lacey. There…all fixed.
They’ve never seen me do a talk show. Quitters.
One gets the sense that one day CNN will be to news what MTV is to music.
There is nothing wrong with the talk show format. The problem is that if you get hosts who are boring and conventional, you get television that is boring and conventional.
It would be downright novel to have a talk show about what the guests had to say rather than guests who are props to make the host look good. Or a talk show designed to shake up the confirmation biases of the audience and even the show’s staff.
But a liberal talk show host telling liberals they are so wise and conservatives they are so evil and vice versa is the news equivalent of junk food and there are already a ton of shows like that.
They should have hired Sharyl Attkisson to helm a show following Jake Tapper. Now that would be worth tuning in for.
See, it wasn’t Piers’ fault. Talking on TV is just not a viable genre anymore. So the message is, “Morgan was great, it is that genre that failed”. Someone ought to break that news to Bill O’Reilly
Well America just can’t get enough of Joan Walsh. She’s like … a phenomenon.
“Jeff Zucker announced today that his network is giving up on the primetime talk show format.”
Instead, CNN will now adopt the “where in the world is that Malaysian plane?” format. 24/7.
A show that let Mike Rowe go out and interview/talk to real people about national concerns could be really great.
I would pay to see that.
I don’t think I would pay $130/month or whatever the going rate of cable tv is though.
The going rate of TV shows that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce is $1.99 on Amazon or $2.99 in HD.
Even better if it were on netflix, but that’s a fantasy that will never happen (I hope I am wrong).
Then again, maybe that is just gravy on top of the advertising subsidized business model tv networks already have in place. They would rather maintain their stranglehold than risk losing it all for a few extra bucks.