Thousands have signed petitions to get Piers Morgan re-instated on Good Morning Britain as ITV shares dived after he was forced to resign when Meghan Markle personally complained that he said he did not believe a word she said.
One, called ‘Bring Back Piers Morgan!’, accused the channel of treating him ‘appallingly’ and another – titled ‘Keep Piers Morgan on GMB for his common sense approach to life’ – had more than 95,000 signatures.
And a third, which has been signed by more than 35,000 people, described getting him sacked as ‘an absolute farce’ as viewers lament his loss from the show and vowed to stop watching it from now on.
ITV’s shares plummeted by 4.3 per cent today, despite yesterday’s divisive show beating BBC Breakfast viewing figures for the first time since 2017, reeling in 1.29million viewers.
Experts say the shock departure of the channel’s tough-talking morning host – who helped add a million new viewers in his time on GMB – could have prompted the rapid drop.
Meanwhile campaigners yesterday said they were writing to ITV and Ofcom amid concerns of a ‘chilling effect on free speech’.
They were concerned about the way the broadcaster insisted Mr Morgan apologise for expressing his opinion, saying journalists should be ‘free to express their scepticism’ about statements made by high-profile people without the risk of losing their job.
Toby Young, of The Free Speech Union, expressed fears it looked like ITV was ‘happy to censure’ a journalist ‘at the request of a member of the Royal Family’.
Former BBC presenter Andrew Neil, who is launching new channel GB News, said he wished to talked to Mr Morgan about a role, saying he would be a ‘great asset’.
Meghan wrote to ITV’s boss to complain about Mr Morgan hours before the GMB co-host quit following an on-screen row with weatherman Alex Beresford.
The Duchess of Sussex insists she was not upset that Mr Morgan said he ‘didn’t believe a word she said’ in her Oprah interview – but was worried about how his comments could affect people attempting to deal with their own mental health problems, an insider told the Press Association.
Standing firm today, Mr Morgan told reporters outside his West London home: ‘If I have to fall on my sword for expressing an honestly held opinion about Meghan Markle and that diatribe of bilge that she came out with in that interview, so be it.’
On Monday Ms Markle went directly to ITV’s CEO Dame Carolyn McCall, the former boss of the left-wing Guardian newspaper, who signed off on the broadcaster’s £1million deal to show the Oprah interview and said yesterday they were ‘dealing with’ the GMB host.
Mr Morgan is understood to have been ordered to apologise – but he refused and quit instead saying he had the right to tell viewers his ‘honestly held opinions’ and declaring: ‘Freedom of speech is a hill I’m happy to die on’.
His departure from ITV’s breakfast show, which he helped transform into a ratings hit that beat its BBC rival for the first time yesterday, came amid the fallout from the extraordinary Oprah interview that has caused the Royal Family’s worst crisis since Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936.
He should be allowed back.