Piers Morgan says CNN mainstay Anderson Cooper contributed to destroying the Brit’s primetime show on the network.
Cooper — CNN’s news anchor of “Anderson Cooper 360” at 8 pm and 10 pm — has struggled consistently versus Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, who touts nightly his perch as the “No. 1 rated cable news show for 14 years running.”
“You look over at Megyn Kelly on Fox News and she’s inheriting 450,000 or 500,000 from Bill O’Reilly in the [25-to-54-year-old] demo, and some days I’d be getting 60,000,” Morgan told Politico’s Dylan Byers.
“That’s not to denigrate Anderson so much, because I think he’s pretty good at what he does. But was he the golden boy everybody thought he was? I didn’t see much evidence of that in ratings,” Morgan said.
The new Daily Mail editor also noted he and Cooper “never really clicked.” (RELATED: Piers Morgan, Unfortunately, Has A New Job)
Even though Morgan’s show was cancelled in March, his contract ran through September with the longtime cable news channel.
CNN now has no concrete show at 9 p.m. in the aftermath of Morgan’s four year run. The Atlanta-based network currently airs a grab bag of shows including Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown,” additional hours of “Anderson Cooper 360,” and other taped programming.
In the aftermath of Morgan’s ouster, CNN President Jeff Zucker proclaimed the talk show genre to be “no longer viable.”
Meanwhile, Fox News and MSNBC shows at the hour are hosted by Kelly and Rachel Maddow, respectively, with Kelly easily dominating the ratings race.
According to Nielsen Media Research, Fox News’ Kelly beat both MSNBC’s Maddow and CNN combined in both total audience and the demo during the the third quarter.
Head to head, Kelly beat Maddow 2297-798 in total audience, and 401-173 in the demo.