Brexit leader Nigel Farage has overtaken Piers Morgan in the prime time television ratings in Britain as the former CNN host has slumped following his now-infamous debut interview with former President Donald Trump.
According to the television rating agency BARB, only 58,000 people watched Piers Morgan’s programme on the new Rupert Murdoch venture TalkTV at its peak, while 76,300 viewers tuned in to watch Nigel Farage’s show on GB News on Monday.
This is the first instance in which Mr Farage has outperformed Morgan since the controversial presenter returned to UK airwaves on April 25th, The Telegraph reported.
Morgan saw early success in the ratings, with a peak of 400,000 viewers watching his debut broadcast, which featured an exclusive interview with former U.S. President Donald Trump from his Florida estate at Mar-a-Lago.
The interview drew considerable backlash, with Mr Morgan being accused of deceptively editing a teaser for the interview in order to make it appear that the former president had stormed off the set. Recordings obtained by Breitbart News made by the Trump team contradicted the narrative spun by Morgan.
Former President Trump hailed the ratings slump for Morgan as vindication, saying: “Ratings for the Piers Morgan interview with me were great! Unfortunately, after that interview, his show bombed completely because of the fake narrative he tried to portray.
“The fact is, I got a new closeup glimpse at Piers, and he no longer has what it takes. It’s over for him!”
Following the Trump interview, Farage and Morgan engaged in a series of tit-for-tat spats, with Morgan accusing the Brexit leader and Donald Trump ally of supplying the former president with a dossier of heavily critical statements made by Morgan against his once-friend Donald Trump.
Farage confirmed that he had supplied Trump with the information, saying: “I said to him Morgan has gone around boasting in UK media, telling everybody that he’s your friend that he’s got special privileged access, but in fact behind your back he’s been stitching you up for a long time if you do this interview here is the truth and I gave him a document.”
The Brexiteer went on to chastise Morgan as “disgraceful” for the edited interview trailer, adding: “I bet Rupert Murdoch is absolutely fuming, why would Trump now trust Fox News or any Murdock media.”
It has been reported that Mr Murdoch, one of the largest media owners in the world, including Fox News, had agreed to pay Morgan £50 million for a three-year deal to serve as the flagship host of TalkTV, which like GB News, is supposedly meant to serve as an alternative to the left-leaning broadcasters in Britain, such as Sky News and the BBC.
Despite ploughing significant sums of money into Morgan and other high-profile hosts, including Sharon Osbourne, TalkTV now regularly fails to best GB News in the ratings.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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