Rupert Murdoch-owned enterprise, TalkTV, on which Piers Morgan is a presenter, has been hit with a huge ratings slump, with certain time slots receiving “zero viewers”.
The Guardian reports TalkTV’s primetime political talk show, The News Desk, did not record a single viewer on its Tuesday night airing. While this doesn’t mean literally nobody tuned in, it does mean the actual viewing numbers were so low they didn’t even register in the UK’s Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board.
The channel also airs Piers Morgan’s new talk show, Piers Morgan Uncensored, which premiered April 25, and which also airs on Sky News Australia.
While the first episode, which featured an exclusive interview with former US President Donald Trump, seemed to be a hit, subsequent episodes have seen diminishing ratings returns.
Compared with its average audience rating of 317,000 viewers on its launch night, The Guardian reports Piers Morgan Uncensored has since slumped to 62,000 viewers per week, which is an 80 per cent drop.
Despite social media having a field day with these figures, Morgan has quickly dismissed them.
“Lots of Guardian readers are getting very excited by my [Piers Morgan Uncensored] ratings and so they should be!” Morgan tweeted earlier today. “It’s amazing that we were the No1 news show in Britain at 8-9pm last night, beating BBC News, Sky News and GB News. Facts don’t care about your feelings, wokies.” Left-wingers: Destroyed, obviously.
However, it hasn’t just been the “wokies” who’ve criticised the former Good Morning Britain presenter and his new program.
The show’s first interviewee, Donald Trump, has also taken shots at Morgan and his diminishing ratings.
“Ratings for the Piers Morgan interview with me were great!” Trump said in a statement. “Unfortunately, after that interview, his show bombed completely because of the fake narrative he tried to portray.
“The fact is, I got a new closeup glimpse at Piers, and he no longer has what it takes. It’s over for him!”
NEW!
President Donald J. Trump:
“Ratings for the Piers Morgan interview with me were great! Unfortunately, after that interview, his show bombed completely because of the fake narrative he tried to portray. The fact is, I got a new close-up glimpse at Piers, and he no longer… pic.twitter.com/m2owkGScBo
— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) May 1, 2022
This is likely due to the two engaging in a heated debate during their sit-down interview over the legitimacy of current US President, Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential election, of which Trump labelled Morgan a “fool” for believing it was a “free and fair” election.
Despite his near-supernatural ability to draw equal levels of ire from both the left and the right, Morgan is standing by his new passion project.
“Great to see @PiersUncensored got higher ratings than BBC News, Sky News & GB News again in our 8-9pm slot last night,” he tweeted yesterday. “Amazing achievement for a brand new show on a brand new network.”
Whether or not Piers owning the libs will be enough to save TalkTV, which is constantly beaten in the ratings by fellow UK right-wing channel, GB News, remains to be seen.
