Title: Piers Morgan Tonight
Host: Piers Morgan
Format: One-on-one interview, or the "across the table" interview. One hour long.
Network: CNN
Broadcasts: Weeknights at 9 p.m. ET
Premiere Date: Jan. 17, 2011. First guest, Oprah Winfrey
Originating From: New York City
Overview:
Piers Morgan Tonight replaces the legendary Larry King Live, which ended its historic 25-year run in Dec. 2010. The new show is hosted by British tabloid journalist and television personality Piers Morgan.
Morgan is best known to American audiences as an America's Got Talent judge. He is a television host and former tabloid news editor in his native Britain.
"When it comes to my TV interviews ... I like to be journalistically rigorous and get the truth out of them (his guests), not force my opinions down the viewers' throat. I want them to be electrified by the combat between me and the guest," Morgan once told The Hollywood Reporter.
Morgan said he hopes his show is thought of as a friendly forum for people to tell their stories, like Larry King Live, but that he's "about trying to just do my thing, and I think that's the reason I got the job, at least in my view."
His first guest was Oprah Winfrey. Winfery talked about being pregnant at 14 years old and how her father, who didn't know she was pregnant, rallied against the "shame" of an "illegitimate child."
"I'm thinking, 'Well, I'm just going to have to kill myself,'" Winfrey told Morgan. She never seriously attempted suicide, but she did drink detergent in a "cry for help."
The show is taped in New York and Morgan uses a similar "across the desk" approach to interviewing guests.
