Piers Morgan the new Larry King

British tabloid veteran Piers Morgan will take over Larry King’s coveted
CNN time slot in January.

King announced in June he was leaving the show. He will be replaced by Morgan, who, after long negotiations, will maintain his roles as a panelist on America’s Got Talent and as host of his British talk show Piers Morgan’s Life Stories.

The Toronto Star reports:

“Morgan will be based in New York and also do work in Los Angeles and London. He’ll do a mixture of celebrity and news interviews, and said he looks forward to contributing on nights when news is breaking. Some of his shows will be live and some, particularly when America’s Got Talent is on the air in the summer, will be taped.

“He said he has a “very personal style” of interviewing familiar to British audiences that he hopes will be a pleasant surprise to Americans.

““It’s a mixture of probing journalistic rigour with a twinkle in the eye and a little bit of mischief, not afraid to have fun where it’s appropriate,” he said. “(I’m) looking for revelations and candour and want to set the news agenda. That’s my idea of why you should interview people. Don’t make it boring. The enemy is apathy.””