Piers Morgan is poised to bring the "worst" of American-style cable news clashes to British TV

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/14/business/media/piers-morgan-walks-off-british-tv.html

Morgan's Good Morning Britain ranting against Meghan Markle last week was unusual for British TV -- but a sign of things to come. "British media has traditionally presented a dynamic opposite to that of the United States," says The New York Times' Ben Smith. "Here, we have radio screamers and spittle-flecked television hosts, while broadsheet newspapers seek to balance both sides of a story. In Britain, the newspapers are often wildly partisan and the television is customarily staid. But Mr. Morgan’s theatrics last week seemed to signal a shift, and to mark the extent to which the forces driving the culture wars are money and commercial opportunity. As Smith notes, British radio and TV is required to be balanced, but those limits are being stretched. “The American culture war has come here in a big way,” Morgan tells Smith, appearing to be welcoming its arrival. Smith adds: "While he denied that his walkout was in any way 'staged,' he acknowledged that his departure comes at a particularly opportune time. Mr. Morgan, a former tabloid editor, America’s Got Talent judge and CNN host, spent the last five years nudging upward the ratings of ITV’s morning show — long a distant second to the BBC’s more staid Breakfast — largely by generating an unending stream of news about his own on-air antics. The show for the first time outdrew the BBC last Tuesday, when he walked off the set. And he is walking straight into a bidding war for his services between two new news networks, one backed by the Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch. Both are aiming to capitalize on populist discontent with the BBC. (Many of the nationalists who supported Brexit — and the royal family — believed that the network was unfair to their cause, even as Brexit critics complained that the BBC was too soft on Brexit supporters’ rosy projections.)"