By Todd Greenberg
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. We are almost six months into CNN’s primetime experiments and it’s becoming painfully clear that no one at the cable news pioneer’s headquarters know what they’re doing.
Sure we put up with Larry King wasting important air time by spending an hour interviewing low level celebrities about nothing… he was Larry King. The man has been in the business since the dawn of time. When the fist living thing trudged out of the cesspool of life he was waiting to interview it. Or if you don’t believe in evolution he was there with a scroll when Jesus came out of his Easter tomb.
We tolerated King in his later years. He was a broadcast legend.
Piers Morgan is British. Nothing wrong with that, but that’s all that Piers has been able to showcase to us. And his interview style isn’t anything special.
Maybe in Britain, the lords spit out their tea and crumpets when he asked a question that was both ribauld and terse, but this is America… where three “JACKASS” movies ruled the box office. This is America where “ass” and “balls” are part of the everyday lexicon. This is AMERICA… where sex and violence is artistic, and no one is shocked by anything anyone says anymore. There’s only three unwritten rules that the majority of Americans primarily agree upon… don’t be racist, leave the kids out of it, and don’t mess with our troops. That’s it.
So why should I want an hour of Sir Piers interview the effeminate kid from GLEE and why does he deserve an hour? Why should I watch an hour with Paris Hilton when she hasn’t been front page entertainment news since 2006? Who the hell cares if Nick Cannon is married to Mariah Carey?
Did I really need a British guy to ask George Clooney the same question 342 hot tabloid TV babes have asked him? He’s not going to get married Piers! He cares about the Sudan… DUH!
Then in the 8pm slot, they revamped a show that should have never been put out in the first place. You drop the old blonde woman. That’s a start. You keep the boring former Governor who paid a young hot woman to have sex with him. Beyond what I just typed… the guy is ridiculously boring. Then… then… here’s the kicker… you add panels.
Whoa! Panels? Really? CNN should get an award for unoriginality because you have to work pretty hard to continuously do the same thing over and over again. The network has a minimum 2 panels on every show.
In the end, the 8pm show like the 9pm is nothing special. They’re not competing with anybody. They’re competing with their day-time shows, and I am truly bored. So bored that I change the channel and ask myself why Elliot Spitzer’s wife didn’t pay someone to be interesting to her (wink). Or if England really is that uptight - a modern version of Gosford Park.
Way to to lower the bar CNN.
