Larry King has gone -- and primetime TV itself could follow him

Larry King's audience dropped 36% and US news shows are losing viewers too. Is it the end of 24/7 television?
The Observer
Jul. 06, 2010

Larry King gives up his CNN show after 25 primetime years and a nation (allegedly) weeps. But look for the bigger picture as well as a hankie. The Larry interview show has lost 36% of its audience in a year. The Campbell Brown show that preceded it is no more: Ms Brown watched 35% go and decided to spend more time with her children. Last April, John King, who starts CNN evenings, attracted only 109,000 viewers under the age of 54. Puny numbers. Cue advertisers spending more time with their navels.

CNN is in trouble -- trouble that recruiting Piers Morgan as the new Larry may not assuage. But then, if you change channels, the Fox Report is 12% below its best, too -- and MSNBC's Hardball has just seen 8% of its audience disappear.

Is this a failure of the programmes the cable kings mount? Or something more: the beginning of inexorable decline as news-on-demand from your laptop supplants repetition on your TV screen? In short, is the entire 24/7 TV genre past its prime?