Piers Morgan To End Daily TalkTV Show To Focus On YouTube Channel

Ted Johnson
·2 min read
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UPDATED: Piers Morgan said that he is ending his TalkTV show on British TV and instead will do a YouTube series.

In a statement, Morgan said that the “vast majority” of the audience for Piers Morgan Uncensored is on their YouTube channel, with 2.3 million subscribers “and many millions of views for our big interviews and debates.”

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“This, in turn, has generated increasingly strong revenue, making the business case for this digital-first pivot not just compelling but imperative,” he said.

“It’s clear there’s a huge global demand for the content we’re making, but the commitment to a daily show at a fixed schedule, with all the editing and time sensitivities that involves, has been an increasingly unnecessary straitjacket.”

Morgan told Semafor, which first reported on the move, that he “just decided that I no longer want to create my show for linear television — I just want to go full digital globally.”

His show, was one of the flagship programs on TalkTV, the channel owned by News UK.

In the Semafor interview, Morgan said that a recent interview with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was seen by 50,000 people on TalkTV but five times as many on YouTube. Morgan said that he co-owns the show with News Corp.

Morgan’s decision to end the TalkTV show and concentrate on the Piers Morgan Uncensored Channel raises questions about the future of the linear channel. His show launched almost two years ago.

Scott Taunton, executive vice president of broadcasting for NewsUK, said in a statement, “It is the right decision for PMU to go digital-first, freeing him from a scheduled show so he can create the right content to grow his already huge global online audience.

“More and more, audiences are consuming video news and opinion online through their phones and this evolution is set to continue. It’s also where the advertising revenues are. Creating professional quality, TV-like video that does well digitally – via streaming services and social media – will be the focus of future investment for all our brands, including Talk.”

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