High-profile British commentator Piers Morgan’s new show debuted with strong ratings on Sky News Australia last Tuesday, but by the end of its first week on air it failed to rate in the top 20 programs on pay TV, beaten by the NRL, Credlin and The Kenny Report.
Piers Morgan Uncensored debuted on Tuesday with an interview with former US president Donald Trump. It attracted 86,000 viewers nationally and was the most-watched program on pay television. By Thursday, the show attracted 38,000 viewers and placed behind Sky News stalwarts Peta Credlin, Andrew Bolt and Paul Murray. On Friday, it did not place in the top 20 viewed programs on pay TV and received fewer than 22,000 viewers.
The first episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored featured an interview with Donald Trump.Credit:The Age
Uncensored, which runs for forty-five minutes from Tuesday to Friday, is a News Corp syndicated program airing across the US, UK, Australia, and parts of Europe. Created by a team of 30 producers based in west London, it is seen as the first attempt of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire to create truly global content.
News Corp has news outlets around the world, but Morgan’s rumoured $87 million contract, which includes the program and two weekly columns, plus a book deal and plans for a true-crime documentary, is the first time that the same content will be freely available across several News Corp brands, including TalkTV.
“I think News Corp have put a lot of effort into this,” said prominent media analyst Steve Allen, director of strategy and research at Pearman Media. “They see [getting Piers Morgan] as a coup and have [announced] the bejesus out of it.”
“You can tell there is some strategy here,” he said. “It certainly suggests to me that this is the first move of many in a push for a CNN-type global news service.”
Loading
But Morgan’s long history of courting controversy — the former breakfast program co-host famously stormed off the set of his ITV’s Good Morning Britain after debating his comments about Meghan Markle — means advertisers will be cautious about promoting through the show.
“You don’t know what will happen or what controversy will come next,” Allen said. “Most advertisers are conservative [in their appetite for risk] … Companies would want reassurance that they won’t get hauled into controversy.”
Stay connected with us on social media platform for instant update click here to join our Twitter, & Facebook
We are now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@TechiUpdate) and stay updated with the latest Technology headlines.
For all the latest Business News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
Denial of responsibility! NewsAzi is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
