One moment Piers Morgan was a judge-for-hire on global reality shows and the next he was taking over from Larry King on CNN.
Shortly after Larry King announced his retirement in June last year, CNN announced that former tabloid editor Piers Morgan would be replacing him in a show of his own titled Piers Morgan Tonight.
The time has arrived for his debut: it premieres in South Africa
tonight (
Tuesday, 18 January) at 22h00 (CAT).Piers and CNN are clearly very aware of the expectations, reservations and pressures facing the new show because they've called in the big guns for the premiere: Oprah as First Guest.
Oprah chats about her life and career, including her biggest failure: the box office flop of her film Beloved. This chatter about the film's failure and her response to it has already made international
news headlines following the online release of a
preview clip from the interview.
As you can see from the above sneak-peak grab of the interview set-up, Larry King's signature desk has vanished, replaced with casual couches and Feng Shui crimes. According to Feng Shui experts you should
never feature fake flowers in any context. They seem to be?
Will this impact on the show's success? Here's a look at the pros and cons that could make or break it:
Pros
- Piers has a sense of humour, which - if he uses it - could result in some choice moments. Larry lost his sense of humour the moment he took Paris Hilton seriously!
- Piers has a British accent, which Americans seem to like a lot. Ricky Gervais and Dr House have stood the test of critics and time.
- His wife is a gossip columnist (for The Daily Telegraph).
- He still has hair.
- His other guests for the premiere week are Howard Stern, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Ricky Gervais and George Clooney.
Cons
- He has to take over from an icon. He has to be true to Larry King fans while creating and establishing his own individual mark.
- Piers has only been married twice versus Larry King who has been through eight marraiges (if not more in his past few months of "retirement").
- By starting the show with such high profile guests he's going to be limited in terms of what he can ask them and how much controversy he can stir up around them.
- He has a British accent, which didn't work for Posh Spice or Robbie Williams in the US.
- The Feng Shui plant problem.
After the premiere the show airs on CNN Mondays to Fridays at 22h00.