Larry King Confirms Fall Exit

Announces on blog that Larry King Live will end its 25-year run

By Staff -- Multichannel News, 6/29/2010 8:02:35 PM

Larry King, the broadcasting pioneer and longtime host of CNN's Larry King Live, announced June 29 that he will end his 25-year run behind the iconic microphone and "hang up his nightly suspenders."

In a blog post at http://larrykinglive.blogs.cnn.com, King writes: "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."

The announcement caps weeks of speculation about the 76-year-old King, whose contract is up in spring 2011, and what CNN will do with the 9 p.m. hour. America's Got Talent judge Piers Morgan has been the subject of reports suggesting he's in the running to succeed King (similar speculation previously has focused on Ryan Seacrest, Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer).

CNN is in the midst of re-examining its primetime line-up following the exit of 8 p.m. host Campbell Brown, who has trailed in the ratings behind Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. The network announced last week that former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and conservative columnist Kathleen Parker will host a roundtable show at 8 p.m. starting in the fall.