I generally don’t watch Larry King Live unless he has on a guest interesting enough to carry the show. Why not? Because too often King asks either stupid or shallow questions. If I wanted, I could compile a list of lame ones every show. But I’d have to suffer through the show in order to do that. So I won’t.
Here’s a funny example from King’s recent interview with Andre Agassi. He asks about the tennis star’s wife, Steffi Graf:
KING: Stephanie going to keep on playing?
AGASSI: No, she hasn’t played in seven years now.
KING: She won’t play again at all?
AGASSI: Well…
KING: She played for the last time.
Ooops.
I understand that when you interview a couple hundred people a year, you can’t possibly know everything about all of them. But you’d think if King knew enough to ask about Steffi, he’d know she hadn’t competed this century. And even if he didn’t, doesn’t he have a staff that does research?
If you want to know why CNN’s ratings have gone down the drain the past decade, part of your answer is in the 9:00 p.m. Eastern hour. I’ve wondered why the network continues to have this show. My best guesses are:
(1) King is like that old professor at a college department who no one is willing to fire because he’s been there for 40 years; or
(2) CNN wants to lock in the 80+ year old demographic.
Either way, it’s a waste of prime time air time.