Ex-NBA star Charles Barkley says CNN is pleading with him to help the failing network regain its former glory.
Barkley claimed that CNN is wooing him to team up with Gayle King for a show on the news network, though the deal is far from complete.
“We don’t have anything set in stone. I’m only considering it because of my respect for Gayle,” Barkley told the New York Post on Thursday.
Barkley added that he has no interest in doing a daily show on CNN, adding, “That is never going to happen.”
King, of course, is currently a member of the “CBS Mornings” team and not signed by CNN currently.
Barkley, 60, just signed a 10-year deal with Warner Brothers Discovery, the parent company of TNT and TBS. However, if the network is unable to renew its NBA contract in 2025, Barkley may find himself with more time on his hands than he might have thought when signing that contract.
Still, Warner Discovery also owns CNN, so he could conceivably serve double duty with both his basketball analysis duties and CNN.
CNN, of course, has suffered ratings disasters one after the other for years. And Barkley thinks he just might be able to help reverse that trend.
“I just want to help the company because obviously it is a sh*t show right now. Anything I can do to help,” Barkley said, according to the Post.
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CNN recently hit ratings at a nine-year-low, so Barkley’s “s*** show” proclamation is an apropos description.
The ratings disasters are occurring all up and down the cable news network’s schedule.
Just this week, for instance, Mediaite reported that CNN’s star anchor, Anderson Cooper, was annihilated by Fox News.
Fox late-night host Greg Gutfeld has also been destroying CNN in the ratings. In fact, Gutfeld has been demolishing everyone in the ratings.
CNN hoped that its new morning show, hosted by the increasingly disgraced anchor Don Lemon, would be its first new hit. Instead, it has also been a ratings dog. Its most recent ratings caused the show to be crowned the network’s worst morning show in a decade.
Fox News has been dominating all of TV for the better part of the last two years, of course, and beating CNN does not seem to be much of a chore.
Clearly, American TV viewers can’t stand the network’s left-wing propaganda. So, shuffling anchors around likely won’t help the network recoup its losses.
It isn’t surprising that CNN’s newest CEO, Chris Licht, has been desperately casting a wide net for personalities who might bring viewers back to the flailing network that was once the top name in cable news.
So far, all the efforts to fix the network have failed. CNN is desperate. Maybe Charles Barkley could help turn the network around. But it might need more of a miracle.
