LITTLE ROCK — CNN host Larry King announced Tuesday evening that he would end his longrunning talk show, Larry King Live, sometime this fall.
Jonathan Klein, president of CNN/United States, said in an e-mail message to staff members that King, 76, was ending the show “on his own terms.”
King will stay on at CNN part time; in a blog post published on CNN.com two hours before his talk show started Tuesday night, he said that he would be hosting several specials “on major national and international subjects.”
Larry King Live, the centerpiece of the CNN primetime schedule, has had a severe ratings decline in recent years, leading to wide speculation that King’s current contract could be his last. His contract expires in June 2011.
While presidents, popes and CNN chiefs have come and gone, King’s talk show has been the only consistent part of CNN’s programming day since it started in 1985.
In the past few weeks, CNN had to deny rumors that it was close to signing a deal for King’s replacement. Piers Morgan, a judge on America’s Got Talent, has been rumored to be talking to CNN about a job.
“I talked to the guys here at CNN and I told them I would like to end Larry King Live, the nightly show, this fall and CNN has graciously accepted, giving me more time for my wife and I to get to the kids’ little league games,” King wrote in the blog post.
He said that his 8 p.m. show was recently recognized by Guinness World Records as being the longestrunning show with the same host in the same time slot.
“With this chapter closing, I’m looking forward to the future and what my next chapter will bring, but for now it’s time to hang up my nightly suspenders,” he concluded in the blog post.
It was unclear whether King has signed a new part time contract with CNN, which is owned by Time Warner.
But Klein emphasized that King was not leaving CNN altogether and said the network would “celebrate tenure in proper fashion over the coming months.”
CNN did not immediately name a successor to King and his 8 p.m. time slot.
In the second quarter, King’s show averaged 674,000 viewers, its lowest ratings ever, according to ratings from the Nielsen Co. In the 25- to 54-year-old demographic, it averaged 176,000, well behind the most popular cable news show at 8 p.m., Hannity on Fox News, as well as the No. 2 The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 06/30/2010