In a significant career shift, broadcaster Piers Morgan is parting ways with Rupert Murdoch’s News UK.
The former Good Morning Britain host will now concentrate on his Uncensored YouTube channel in the US, as he transitions to the digital platform.
News UK has struck a deal with Piers that will see him take control of the Uncensored media brand. Currently boasting a 3.6 million following on YouTube, it’s understood according to the Mirror that Piers has negotiated a four-year revenue-sharing agreement.
According to Sky News, the company will receive a portion of the advertising revenue generated by Piers Morgan Uncensored until 2029. Piers returned to News UK in January 2022 on a three-year contract, which included writing for the Sun and the New York Post as well as presenting shows on the now-defunct Talk TV channel.
Despite this move, Piers’ book deal with Murdoch’s publisher Harper Collins is still expected to proceed. An insider revealed that Piers will also continue to write sporadically for News Corporation’s newspapers.
In February last year, Piers announced that he would be leaving TalkTV to focus on his Uncensored YouTube channel. He expressed his frustration with creating a show in a TV-format when most of his viewers consume content through various other methods.
Piers Morgan informed his followers of some “Some personal news” as he shared a link to an article by journalist Ben Smith. The headline from Smith announced: “News: Piers Morgan is ending his live broadcast show on UK’s TalkTV, and going full YouTube. He talked to me about it.”
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In conversation with Smith, Piers expressed that the debates on Israel’s actions in Gaza felt too constrained on his hour-long TV programme, saying, “I find myself thinking, ‘I wish we weren’t just doing a TV show here, because if we weren’t I would do this for two hours. That’s what the YouTube crowd love,” he confessed.
His transition to YouTube means he will escape Ofcom’s oversight, yet Piers insists that escaping regulation was not the impetus for his digital shift. “Despite being allegedly so controversial, I’ve never had an Ofcom ruling against me,” he stated during the interview with Smith.
Piers joined TalkTV in 2022 following his dramatic departure from Good Morning Britain. It was back in 2021 when it was suddenly declared that the former newspaper editor was leaving the ITV morning show immediately after a heated exchange with colleague Alex Beresford.
The disagreement erupted when Alex criticised Piers for his persistent criticism of the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, following her interview with Oprah Winfrey. In a turn of events that captured headlines, Piers walked off the set of the ITV news show when Alex described his remarks about Meghan as “diabolical”.
Ofcom initiated an investigation into ITV’s Good Morning Britain following a deluge of over 41,000 complaints regarding Piers Morgan’s remarks about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s interview with Oprah. The broadcaster commented: “Following discussions with ITV, Piers Morgan has decided now is the time to leave Good Morning Britain. ITV has accepted this decision and has nothing further to add.”
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