Piers Morgan's £5.5m US deal

BGT judge to replace interview icon Larry King and move to...

10:23 14 June 2010

Britain's Got Talent judge Piers Morgan will sign a £5.5m contract to take over from American interview icon Larry King, it has been revealed.

TV judge and former newspaper editor Morgan is tipped to sign a four-year contract with CNN to take over King's primetime show in the autumn.

Morgan made a name for himself in the States following his role as a judge on America's Got Talent, produced by rival network NBC. CNN were reportedly impressed by his British talk show 'Piers Morgan's Life Stories', in which he interviewed a collection of guests as diverse as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and model Katie Price.

'The Larry King Show' has been a permenant fixture on US TV for decades, first airing in 1985. However, the 76-year-old interview veteran has seen his ratings sink in the first three months of this year, to an all-time low of just 771,000 viewers, down 43% in the last year.

Morgan is expected to quit his role on Britain's Got Talent and relocate to the States. Fellow judge Simon Cowell is in a similar position after attempting to start up The X Factor in America.

An unnamed source told The Sun: "No matter how much Piers wants to stay on BGT, he just can't do it all, simple as that."