Media

CNN ending Charles Barkley, Gayle King talk show

Gayle King and Charles Barkley’s run hosting a talk show on CNN is coming to an end.

The pair gave their final signoff last week on “King Charles,” a weekly talk show CNN rolled out last year that was described at the time as a limited series.

The show featured King and Barkley offering commentary and interviews on a wide variety of issues ranging from politics to television and music.

The prime-time program, which was launched just months after the ouster of former CNN CEO Chris Licht, struggled to gain a meaningful foothold in the ultracompetitive cable news ratings race.

Barkley last fall joked about how the show might perform with the network’s audience, quipping during an early episode, “We hope you all like the show. And we hope like hell y’all got Nielsen boxes,” The Washington Post noted at the time.


In a statement Monday, the network confirmed the show was coming off the air, saying “King Charles has come to the end of its limited run as we announced when it launched last fall and was a great addition to CNN’s lineup, with the youngest, most affluent, and most diverse P2+ audience in its cable news time period.”

King is also a co-host of “CBS Mornings,” while Barkley is a leading basketball analyst for TNT, which, like CNN, is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.