Shrinking CNN taps Spitzer, Morgan Last Updated: 12:43 AM, June 15, 2010 Posted: 12:07 AM, June 15, 2010
Ted Turner must be flinging his remote at the wall in despair. CNN, the cable network he founded, is poised to turn its prime-time schedule over to two disgraced public figures, ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer and former British tabloid editor Piers Morgan, in its desperate bid to restore lost ratings.
Hooker-loving Spitzer is thisclose to a deal to co-host an 8 p.m. talk show, sources said. Morgan -- a former editor of Britain's Daily Mirror being groomed to replace Larry King -- was caught up in a scandal in 2000 after he bought shares in a company before his paper touted them as good buys. He quit in 2004 after printing fake photos of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by British soldiers.
A source said, "CNN is so desperate, they're totally abandoning Turner's original vision of impartial reporting. With talent like Spitzer on board, the people hosting the news will be more controversial than any guests they could book."
The Post's Michael Shain reports Spitzer has "all but a done deal" to get a co-host spot at 8 p.m., previously occupied by Campbell Brown, whose ratings had plunged. Spitzer will become half of a talking-head duo on a show fashioned after "Crossfire," which CNN canceled in 2005. CNN is searching for a conservative partner for Spitzer, who'll go head-to-head with Fox's Bill O'Reilly in the time slot, before announcing the new show.
WOW! CNN is really dropping it's standards... They are acting like Fox News!
Next CNN will be hiring 3time convicted felon (and shame of the USMarines) Oliver North to work for them... or possibly the half time Governor and 3rd place beauty queen, from Alaska!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
They are really going to put spitzer against oreilly in primetime news? That will be interesting to say the least. I think the CNN loyalists will be in for a 'makeover' surprise. Between spitzer and the rumor of replacing King, it could either make or break CNN.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler