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CNN's Piers Morgan Problem: Here's One Solution -- Rachel Maddow

By Jim Edwards

Updated on: August 3, 2011 / 10:08 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

Here's one potential solution to CNN's looming Piers Morgan problem, but the news network will have to act fast to take advantage of it: MSNBC's Rachel Maddow consistently beats Morgan's evening show in the ratings, and that's the perfect excuse to put Morgan on hiatus -- perhaps for a long-form documentary in a faraway land? -- or replace him all together before Her Majesty's finest invite Morgan to tea and biscuits at Scotland Yard.

The Morgan snowball appears to be getting bigger as it rolls downhill. His former managing editor at the News of the World, Stuart Kuttner, has been arrested in the phone hacking scandal. A lawyer representing hacking victims says he will file lawsuits against the Mirror that relate to the period in which Morgan was the editor. Many, many invoices for illegal information were paid on Morgan's watch. He is widely expected to be called to answer questions in front of the parliamentary select committee that's investigating hacking. And then there's Morgan's documented history of phone hacking knowledge, which you can read more about here.

CNN has a lot of face to lose if the scandal ever touches Morgan in a legal way. According to the Wall Street Journal, CNN gave him only the most cursory vetting before giving him his own show, even though in Britain he was most famous in media circles for engaging in insider trading based on his own stock columnist's tips and was fired as editor of the Mirror for publishing a fake story about British troops committing war crimes in Iraq -- a story that was on CNN's own web site.

Inside CNN, the patience of the embarrassed execs who must work with him is running out, according to The Slog:

"The focus groups are equivocal about Morgan" says one US media insider, "and traditional CNN fans aren't happy to be fed a diet of celebrity life episodes. Piers Morgan is not widely seen as a success in CNN. In some parts of the building, he's seen as an accident waiting to happen".

So the idea of axing Morgan due to low ratings -- before he soils the CNN brand with headlines about hacking -- is looking increasingly attractive. It would, of course, be a mere fig leaf -- his ratings are an improvement from Larry King's -- but that's all CNN needs. That would leave CNN open to bid for Maddow's services -- and why not? Sure she's a lefty, but she's an entertaining lefty and CNN could use her nighttime numbers.

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