A peeved Piers Morgan was left feeling the heat as he was door-stepped by ITV News. Piers was asked if he intended to apologise to Prince Harry after the High Court today heard he must have known about the unlawful phone hacking of the prince. All he could say was:

“I’m not gonna take lectures on privacy invasions from Prince Harry. Someone who’s spent the last three years ruthlessly and cynically invading the Royal Family’s privacy for vast commercial gain and told a pack of lies about them. So I suggest he gets out of court and apologises to his family.”

This rather unconvincing deflection is from a man who himself ruthlessly and cynically invaded celebrity’s privacy for vast commercial gain and told a pack of lies about doing so. After all these years Morgan’s defence remains, in the words of Lord Leveson, “utterly unpersuasive“.

Happy first birthday to Piers Morgan Unwatched, which debuted exactly one year ago today. Guido has already reported on the broader picture over at TalkTV, although given today is the special day, it seems fair to celebrate the milestone with at least one more look at the BARB figures…

Unwatched got 317,000 viewers on its premiere. Last night, just 22,000 loyal fans tuned in, which is less than Jacob Rees-Mogg (57,700) over on GB News and Jeremy Kyle (26,200) on his own channel. Morgan’s audience has shrunk by approximately 93% in a year. At least Fox News now have a vacancy in their line-up if Piers decides to throw in the towel. He’s not even appearing on-air tonight because “some dodgy sushi” has given him food poisoning…

The statement from Fox News has Guido worried:

NEW YORK — April 24, 2023 — FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.

Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21st. Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 PM/ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating FOX News personalities until a new host is named.

Guido is not worried much that Tucker Carlson has been binned – he had long shifted from being a conventional strongly conservative voice to someone prone to conspiracy, weak on American global leadership in foreign affairs and increasingly kooky. It is the promise to have his primetime slot hosted by “rotating FOX News personalities” that has Guido worried. Technically speaking Piers Morgan is “a FOX News personality” on the channel’s digital streaming “Fox Nation” platform.

Surely he would not consider getting Piers to do for Fox News what he has done for Talk TV? If Guido could be so bold as to remind Rupert Murdoch*, before Piers became an anti-woke infotainer he is today he had an unsuccessful show on CNN where he campaigned for gun controls. Something that is satanically anathema to the viewership of Fox News…

*Worth a shot, @guidofawkes is one of a handful of accounts Murdoch follows on Twitter.

Tomorrow is TalkTV’s first birthday, so as News UK prepare to celebrate, Guido’s taking a look at how things are playing out. First, their leading man: as we reported last week, Piers Morgan is now broadcasting from the baby Shard in a smaller, cheaper studio. The fancy Ealing setup – which was allegedly selected to cut Piers’ commute – has been scrapped to save money. The channel lost £34 million last year, in large part thanks to the size of Morgan’s over-inflated pay packet.

As for viewership, co-conspirators will notice Guido no longer publishes regular updates on the BARB figures. Since TalkTV is turning one, Guido’s doing it again for old time’s sake. The broad picture is that GB News consistently beats TalkTV throughout the day, including prime time. A big problem for Piers Morgan in the last six weeks is his new competitor, Jacob Rees-Mogg. Rees-Mogg airs on GB News in the same 8pm slot, and in the last 30 days, has recorded double Morgan’s viewership on six separate occasions. Last Thursday, Piers Morgan Unwatched got 26,700 viewers, while Jacob took in 51,300. In fact, Piers even lost to Jeremy Kyle on 28,000. Piers used to blame Tom Newton Dunn’s “No Views Desk” for tanking the viewership as Unwatched was about to air. Now Kyle is his warm-up man, and the viewership is… the same.

Guido knows this will be tough for Piers to read. Apparently he’s hasn’t taken kindly to our reports, and is known to fume about them to underlings. After a decade of retweeting and engaging he unfollowed Guido on Twitter a few months ago, although he’s had the self-discipline not to block us yet. If there’s one thing Piers hates, it’s being irrelevant. If there’s one thing he likes, however, it’s his YouTube channel, which to be fair to Piers, recently crossed 1 million subscribers – and his headline interviews with the likes of Stormy Daniels get lots of clicks. Unfortunately, as TalkTV insiders point out, “YouTube hits don’t pay the bills”…

For those wondering how Tom Newton Dunn is doing ever since he achieved net zero in February, his last show got about 6,500 viewers. When he was put out to pasture with the 10 pm slot, his show rebranded to “First Edition“. Amongst TalkTV staff, however, Guido hears it goes by another name: “Last Chance Saloon”. 

The dozens of eagle-eyed viewers who tuned in to Piers Morgan Unwatched last night will have noticed an important cosmetic change: Piers has been booted out of his fancy, bespoke studio in Ealing and relegated to the Baby Shard. He finally debuted in the “slightly jazzier little set-up” – “little” being the operative word – in a cost-cutting move enforced by the News UK higher-ups. It is significantly smaller, despite Piers’ unconvincing sales pitch…

Head of TV at News UK Broadcasting Richard Wallace announced the move in December. Now it’s finally happened, almost a year exactly since TalkTV hit the airwaves…

“Moving into the News Building is also more cost efficient as after fit-out costs, ongoing operating costs are far lower than in an external studio. We are always cost conscious but never more so than in the current economic environment with cost inflation and economic uncertainty.”

Since launch, News UK Broadcasting have lost £34 million on TalkTV, so it’s no surprise Piers is now broadcasting from a more modest setup. With Jacob Rees-Mogg regularly besting him in the head-to-head ratings battle, the new studio is – like his audience – much smaller. So much so that they’ve had to scrap in-person audiences for some of their shows, there just isn’t enough space. Has so much ever before been spent on so few?

Jacob Rees-Mogg made his big debut on GB News last night, going head-to-head with Piers Morgan at 8pm. How did he do? Guido has the overnight BARB figures…

Jacob took in an average of 79,200 viewers for the hour. Piers, meanwhile, took in a mere 35,300. More than doubling Morgan’s average throughout the show.

In fact, Rees-Mogg beat Sky News, which scored 64,700. Jacob and Piers will face off again tonight – rest assured, Guido will be checking the figures again. Beaten by a part-time presenter, oh Piers…