Charles Barkley’s CNN Show With Gayle King Ends After Six Months
It was getting clobbered in the ratings by even ‘Friends’ reruns.
King Charles, the weekly CNN prime-time talk show hosted by Charles Barkley and CBS News anchor Gayle King, ended six months after its November debut.
The show, which aired at 10 p.m. on Wednesday nights, had suffered from abysmal ratings from the start and had still not managed to find an audience after 14 episodes. It consistently came in a distant third compared to its cable news competitors—Gutfeld! on Fox News and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC—and was even beaten out in the ratings by reruns of Friends and South Park.
Although it was erroneously reported to have been canceled on Monday, a CNN reporter told Men’s Journal that the series was intended to have a limited run when it was announced last April.
But even when it debuted, King Charles was the lowest-rated premiere for a prime time weeknight series on the network in at least a decade, with 500,000 total viewers and 139,000 in the coveted 25–54 demographic, according to Nielsen data reported by the New York Post. Viewership had dropped 20 percent since its November debut, and overall the show was averaging about 459,000 total viewers weekly with 106,000 in the 25–54 demographic.
The episode that aired on Jan. 31 marked the first time the show wasn’t able to surpass 100,000 viewers in the 25-54 age range, the data shows.
An industry source blamed Barkley’s schedule for the show never finding its footing. The 61-year-old was only able to film the show on Wednesdays due to his other commitments, particularly his co-hosting duties on TNT’s Inside the NBA, says a source close to the network. For his part, Barkley has also admitted that his packed schedule made it difficult for the show to attract a loyal audience.
