Washington Post television critic Tom Shales feels bad for Larry King. The columnist’s sources tell him CNN executives will try to ease out the talk show host the way network executives always do: ruthlessly, without regard for the past, but with kind words to say at the same time. Nevertheless, Shales lets the zingers fly:
The bottom line is that King’s ratings are down significantly on a network whose programming sometimes lags behind Headline News, “the little CNN spinoff for people with smaller attention spans than a hummingbird.” According to Shales, “CNN higher-ups have hardly been conspicuous in defending and praising King on the record so as to soften the blow of the current ratings decline. Some see King as, in effect, having been hung out to dry or even, in a professional competitive sense, hung out to die.”
I am reminded of Henry Hill’s line in Goodfellas (based on the book Wiseguy): “Your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who’ve cared for you all of your life. And they always seem to come at a time that you’re at your weakest and most in need of their help.” Such as in the midst of your eighth divorce.
