World's richest man puts Larry King back on the air (Relax, Piers!)
Larry King is back! The 78-year-old talk-show host is putting his old show back on the air . But Piers Morgan, the Brit hired by CNN last year to replace Larry, can relax. CNN is not having second thoughts.
Larry King: He's back
Larry is to recreating his old role on an Internet television network launching later this year, backed by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
The network, called Ora.TV, will stream shows to computers, tablets, phones, Internet-connected televisions and other devices, a huge and fast-expanding market.
Jon Housman, previously president of digital journalism initiatives at News Corp,has been hired to run it.
Ora.TV is one of many ventures seeking to bypass traditional TV by distributing directly to consumers who increasingly are watching video on handheld and other devices, said the Wall Street Journal. Google's YouTube is also spending hundreds of millions funding new channels.
"The whole space has matured nicely and is poised for explosive growth," Housman said in an interview.
The programming will be completely advertising-supported. Housman said that in the last couple years, advertisers have started to follow the "massive" amount of viewers of streaming video.
Larry's show will be an interview show like the one he had at CNN for 25 years - but he will also be involved in a couple of other, "very different" projects. The programming will be completely advertising-supported.
Carlos Slim, the world's richest man with a fortune of $74 billion, has became a huge name in U.S. media in recent years. He lent the New York Times $250 million at 14 percent interest at one point, which the paper repaid last year, three and a half years early. He has a stake in the paper which he can increase to over 17 per cent if he wishes .