By BRIAN STELTER and BILL CARTER
Piers Morgan, the bad-cop judge on the hit NBC show “America’s Got Talent,” is poised to take over Larry King’s coveted time slot on CNN, a move smoothed by an imminent deal between the two media giants that own the channels, NBC Universal and Turner Broadcasting.
This week, NBC signaled that it was willing to share Mr. Morgan with CNN. That decision frees Mr. Morgan to negotiate directly with CNN, and according to three people involved in the delicate maneuvering between the companies, a contract could be signed within a few days.
If completed, the deal would vault Mr. Morgan, a native of Britain, into the top tier of television interviewers, alongside people like Oprah Winfrey, Barbara Walters and Katie Couric. It will also demonstrate that CNN thinks there is still room in prime time for long-form interviews with public servants and starlets, a stark contrast to the partisan pundits on its higher-rated rivals, Fox News and MSNBC.
Mr. King announced two weeks ago that he was ending “Larry King Live” this fall, creating a huge vacancy for CNN. Mr. Morgan had been rumored as a replacement even before then, a prospect that baffled many people inside CNN.
But what many people in the United States might not know is that Mr. Morgan, 45, is an A-list interviewer, and he has essentially been rehearsing for CNN for the past year by hosting “Piers Morgan Life Stories,” a series of well-received and high-rated interviews with figures like Gordon Brown and Simon Cowell, on the British network ITV.
A former creature of Fleet Street who edited The Daily Mirror for a decade, Mr. Morgan has all manner of critics, including the NBC viewers who dislike his mean-Brit persona and the television critics who despise his chilling self-confidence. But Mr. Cowell, his close friend, has demonstrated on “American Idol” that being disliked can be a shortcut to fame and fortune.
“Almost every other U.K. TV import has been hugely successful,” said Tammy Haddad, a former executive producer of “Larry King Live” who now runs a media consulting company.
For CNN, Mr. Morgan’s role on the talent show could be a promotional platform to attract desperately needed younger viewers — or it could be a source of awkwardness for a channel that calls itself “the most trusted name in news.” CNN has been trying to rebuild its low-rated prime-time lineup. Last month, it hired Eliot Spitzer, the former New York governor, and Kathleen Parker, a newspaper columnist, to host an 8 p.m. discussion show.
Now it needs to rebuild the 9 p.m. slot Mr. King is vacating.
“The 9 p.m. hour is the linchpin of any success in cable news,” Ms. Haddad said. “As a cable channel, it tells viewers who you are and what you care about.”
CNN executives were clearly impressed by Mr. Morgan’s ITV interviews — and by his reputation for preparing scrupulously for them. For his part, Mr. Morgan has long told friends that Mr. King’s show was his dream job.
But NBC had full control over Mr. Morgan’s immediate future in television because his contract grants the network exclusive rights to all his work on American television. CNN had made its interest in Mr. Morgan clear, both to him and to NBC. In the usual course of contractual niceties in the entertainment industry, Mr. Morgan and his representative could listen to what CNN had to say, but had to steer clear of anything that might constitute a formal negotiation.
The main action has not directly involved CNN. It is taking place quietly between executives from NBC Universal and Turner Broadcasting, a unit of Time Warner. These talks centered on whether Turner had something to offer NBC Universal.
Neither side was prepared on Tuesday to announce what, if anything, Turner might have given in return. But whatever NBC gained, the decision seemed to indicate that NBC’s opinion of Mr. Morgan’s prospects as an interview host did not match CNN’s. If he does take the job, Mr. Morgan would be a chief rival to MSNBC, the news channel owned by NBC.
The companies declined to comment on Tuesday, and it is still possible that CNN could not sign Mr. Morgan.
One protection NBC secured in the apparent deal is that “America’s Got Talent” would be the priority for Mr. Morgan in any potential scheduling conflict with his role on CNN.
For the last two decades, Mr. Morgan has built a journalist-celebrity brand for himself in Britain by carefully cultivating both his relationships with celebrities and his own status as one.
He was fired by The Mirror in 2004, after it published faked photographs that purported to show abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British soldiers, and he set his sights on a full-time television future. He became a full-time host of BBC shows like “Tabloid Tales” and, in a nod to his embarrassing exit from The Mirror, “You Can’t Fire Me, I’m Famous.”
Then he whitened his teeth, tanned his body and came to the United States with the help of Mr. Cowell, who placed him on “America’s Got Talent” four years ago. The show now keeps NBC afloat during the summer months, routinely drawing 10 million to 15 million viewers per episode. Mr. Morgan recently extended his contract with the show through 2013.
Named after the race car driver Piers Courage, Mr. Morgan studied journalism in college and quickly found himself working at The Sun, running a column on entertainment, where he introduced his calling card: photos of himself with celebrities.
Now a celebrity himself, Mr. Morgan juggles “Got Talent” franchises in America and Britain; interview and travel shows on ITV; and a monthly interview column for GQ. Last year he found time to pose for an ad for a gimmicky Burger King body spray, and last week he popped up on the “Today” show interviewing Susan Boyle.
Dylan Jones, the editor of the British GQ, said in an e-mail message that he hired Mr. Morgan in part because he knew that people would be intrigued to meet him.
“Which they were,” he said. “Politicians, actors, singers, everyone. Piers has that amazing ability to tap you on the shoulder, and say, ‘It’s ok, you can tell me.’ Amazingly, people do.”
Piers Morgan, the bad-cop judge on the hit NBC show “America’s Got Talent,” is poised to take over Larry King’s coveted time slot on CNN, a move smoothed by an imminent deal between the two media giants that own the channels, NBC Universal and Turner Broadcasting.
This week, NBC signaled that it was willing to share Mr. Morgan with CNN. That decision frees Mr. Morgan to negotiate directly with CNN, and according to three people involved in the delicate maneuvering between the companies, a contract could be signed within a few days.
If completed, the deal would vault Mr. Morgan, a native of Britain, into the top tier of television interviewers, alongside people like Oprah Winfrey, Barbara Walters and Katie Couric. It will also demonstrate that CNN thinks there is still room in prime time for long-form interviews with public servants and starlets, a stark contrast to the partisan pundits on its higher-rated rivals, Fox News and MSNBC.
Mr. King announced two weeks ago that he was ending “Larry King Live” this fall, creating a huge vacancy for CNN. Mr. Morgan had been rumored as a replacement even before then, a prospect that baffled many people inside CNN.
But what many people in the United States might not know is that Mr. Morgan, 45, is an A-list interviewer, and he has essentially been rehearsing for CNN for the past year by hosting “Piers Morgan Life Stories,” a series of well-received and high-rated interviews with figures like Gordon Brown and Simon Cowell, on the British network ITV.
A former creature of Fleet Street who edited The Daily Mirror for a decade, Mr. Morgan has all manner of critics, including the NBC viewers who dislike his mean-Brit persona and the television critics who despise his chilling self-confidence. But Mr. Cowell, his close friend, has demonstrated on “American Idol” that being disliked can be a shortcut to fame and fortune.
“Almost every other U.K. TV import has been hugely successful,” said Tammy Haddad, a former executive producer of “Larry King Live” who now runs a media consulting company.
For CNN, Mr. Morgan’s role on the talent show could be a promotional platform to attract desperately needed younger viewers — or it could be a source of awkwardness for a channel that calls itself “the most trusted name in news.” CNN has been trying to rebuild its low-rated prime-time lineup. Last month, it hired Eliot Spitzer, the former New York governor, and Kathleen Parker, a newspaper columnist, to host an 8 p.m. discussion show.
Now it needs to rebuild the 9 p.m. slot Mr. King is vacating.
“The 9 p.m. hour is the linchpin of any success in cable news,” Ms. Haddad said. “As a cable channel, it tells viewers who you are and what you care about.”
CNN executives were clearly impressed by Mr. Morgan’s ITV interviews — and by his reputation for preparing scrupulously for them. For his part, Mr. Morgan has long told friends that Mr. King’s show was his dream job.
But NBC had full control over Mr. Morgan’s immediate future in television because his contract grants the network exclusive rights to all his work on American television. CNN had made its interest in Mr. Morgan clear, both to him and to NBC. In the usual course of contractual niceties in the entertainment industry, Mr. Morgan and his representative could listen to what CNN had to say, but had to steer clear of anything that might constitute a formal negotiation.
The main action has not directly involved CNN. It is taking place quietly between executives from NBC Universal and Turner Broadcasting, a unit of Time Warner. These talks centered on whether Turner had something to offer NBC Universal.
Neither side was prepared on Tuesday to announce what, if anything, Turner might have given in return. But whatever NBC gained, the decision seemed to indicate that NBC’s opinion of Mr. Morgan’s prospects as an interview host did not match CNN’s. If he does take the job, Mr. Morgan would be a chief rival to MSNBC, the news channel owned by NBC.
The companies declined to comment on Tuesday, and it is still possible that CNN could not sign Mr. Morgan.
One protection NBC secured in the apparent deal is that “America’s Got Talent” would be the priority for Mr. Morgan in any potential scheduling conflict with his role on CNN.
For the last two decades, Mr. Morgan has built a journalist-celebrity brand for himself in Britain by carefully cultivating both his relationships with celebrities and his own status as one.
He was fired by The Mirror in 2004, after it published faked photographs that purported to show abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British soldiers, and he set his sights on a full-time television future. He became a full-time host of BBC shows like “Tabloid Tales” and, in a nod to his embarrassing exit from The Mirror, “You Can’t Fire Me, I’m Famous.”
Then he whitened his teeth, tanned his body and came to the United States with the help of Mr. Cowell, who placed him on “America’s Got Talent” four years ago. The show now keeps NBC afloat during the summer months, routinely drawing 10 million to 15 million viewers per episode. Mr. Morgan recently extended his contract with the show through 2013.
Named after the race car driver Piers Courage, Mr. Morgan studied journalism in college and quickly found himself working at The Sun, running a column on entertainment, where he introduced his calling card: photos of himself with celebrities.
Now a celebrity himself, Mr. Morgan juggles “Got Talent” franchises in America and Britain; interview and travel shows on ITV; and a monthly interview column for GQ. Last year he found time to pose for an ad for a gimmicky Burger King body spray, and last week he popped up on the “Today” show interviewing Susan Boyle.
Dylan Jones, the editor of the British GQ, said in an e-mail message that he hired Mr. Morgan in part because he knew that people would be intrigued to meet him.
“Which they were,” he said. “Politicians, actors, singers, everyone. Piers has that amazing ability to tap you on the shoulder, and say, ‘It’s ok, you can tell me.’ Amazingly, people do.”
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