OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Things are not going swimmingly for Piers Morgan after his hit piece interview with former President Donald Trump.
Morgan is set to take a six-week hiatus, which he claims was pre-planned, from his TalkTV show, but it comes as his ratings are in a nosedive, MSN reported.
The highest-rated episode of his “Piers Morgan Tonight” show happened on his debut where he had the former president, and they have been downhill ever since.
The Trump episode pulled in around 400,000 viewers, but after he sandbagged the former president, Official Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board data showed recent episodes drew 24,000 viewers and ended with just 10,000.
Morgan was beaten in the ratings by arch-rival GB News during one edition while other shows in the TalkTV schedule have recorded a “zero viewers” Barb rating.
TalkTV, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, declined to comment on Morgan’s holiday plans, which were revealed on Twitter by Media Guido.
Insiders say the presenter has a long-scheduled break from Uncensored lined up for later in the summer.
Morgan has commitments to film a TV true-crime series and is likely to take a holiday after that, making an extended period off his prime-time show.
People compared his departure to a fellow host, Andrew Neil, who took a “two-week vacation” from GB News and never came back.
Though insiders say that Morgan’s situation is not the same and he still has high hopes for TalkTV.
But this month the show hosted by Trump supporter Nigel Farage started defeating Morgan in the ratings.
Morgan is not exactly anti-Trump, as the two have been friends for a long time, but during a speech in early May, the former president did tear into him.
“This crazy Piers Morgan did you see that show? Piers Morgan thank you, sir. Did you see Piers Morgan? I think he sorta had it. I think Piers is over the hill,” he said to the crowd.
“He opened the show with an interview of me, I did him a favor. I didn’t want to do his stupid show. It’s on Fox Nation. What is Fox Nation?” the former president said.
“He opened with great ratings when he did me and after my interview is finished he bombed and he is now down over 70 percent and maybe they’ll someday learn that maybe they should hire me as an anchor,” he said.
After Morgan started promoting his Trump interview with a clip that made it appear that the former president stormed out, Trump issued a press release deriding Morgan.
“Piers Morgan, like the rest of the Fake News Media, attempted to unlawfully and deceptively edit his long and tedious interview with me. He wanted to make it look like I walked out on the interview when my time limit of 20 minutes went over by an hour,” he said.
“The good news is that the interview was taped by us as a means of keeping him honest,” the former president said, asking viewers to compare the unedited and edited versions.
“For those who want to make Piers look bad, compare his video promo and how it was doctored to the real thing. Hopefully they will now be doing some big changes to their final product,” he said.
“It just shows, however, what I have to deal with in the Fake News Media. He went out of his way to deceptively edit an interview and got caught. That is a big story, isn’t it?” he said.
Yes – his claim is fake news. https://t.co/eUUttpQW2l
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) April 21, 2022
Reporter Thomas Watkins asked Morgan on Twitter “Do you have any comment on Trump’s claims your promo was ‘unlawfully and deceptively’ edited?” to which Morgan responded by calling the former president’s claims “fake news.”
