HERE IS PART OF THE STORY. IT DEALS MOSTLY WITH THE DECLINE OF LARRY KING. BUT RACHEL MADDOW IS EXHIBIT “A” IN THE FIRST SENTENCE AS ONE OF THOSE TV COMPETITORS WHO BESTED HIM.
May 26, 2010
IN A NEW ERA OF TV, RIVAL HOSTS DROWN OUT KING
By BRIAN STELTER
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. There is a growing feeling at the company that a succession plan should be put in place, but there is no evidence that CNN is actually preparing such a plan.
Mr. King was noticeably absent during a presentation for advertisers last month, which heavily featured CNN stars like Anderson Cooper and Soledad O’Brien, but only fleetingly included Mr. King in a video clip.
“Larry King Live” is the last trace of an earlier age of cable TV, one that had little interest in the opinions of its hosts.
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Thursday, May 27th 2010 at 11:27AM
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