It’s been at least seven years since Piers Morgan announced he’d like to join Fox News but Rupert Murdoch said in today’s press release announcing Morgan’s “global deal” with the company, “Piers is the broadcaster every channel wants but is too afraid to hire.”

Apparently, Murdoch and the Fox brass have finally conquered their fears. More from the Fox press release:

Morgan will launch a new television program in early 2022 that will air on weeknights in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. He will also publish two weekly columns for the New York Post and The Sun and pen a follow-up to his bestselling book, "Wake Up," for HarperCollins. 

Morgan’s new show will air on talkTV in the UK, FOX Nation for U.S. audiences, and on Sky News Australia. It will be produced and filmed at News UK’s studios in London Bridge. Morgan will also present a series of true crime documentaries.  

Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott expressed her delight, too:

“Piers is an exceptional talent," Scott said. "We look forward to him making an impact and exploring opportunities with him on all of our platforms, especially FOX Nation, where our subscribers will love his new show tackling the subjects everyone is talking about." 

The way I read this, Morgan is a candidate to take over a Fox News Channel program – say, when Sean Hannity finally makes good on his threat to retire or maybe as the permanent host of Fox News Primetime, which has been without a permanent host since its inception, nine months ago.

In fact, Morgan informally auditioned for Fox on the Hannity show, in October, 2014. It was one week after Morgan told Politico, “If Rupert Murdoch sat me down tomorrow and said, ‘We want to put you on the Fox network in prime time.’ … Well, I’m not stupid.” In the same interview, Morgan blamed his poor ratings at CNN on Anderson Cooper and credited Bill O’Reilly with Megyn Kelly’s good ratings at Fox. The day before appearing on Hannity, Morgan told NBC’s Today show, “"I would love to be back on American television... I'm itching to get back in the game.”

On Hannity, Morgan was full of Fox talking points which, as I wrote about the segment, "could have been scripted by Roger Ailes, himself." Evidence of Morgan’s involvement in the Murdoch-owned tabloids phone hacking scandal never came up. For whatever reason, it was not enough for Murdoch to get over his fear of hiring Morgan then or in the intervening years.

But recently, this peach of a guy has impressed Fox by trashing Meghan Markle. He also grabbed the limelight by storming off the set and quitting his Good Morning Britain hosting job when a cohost suggested Morgan's attacks on Markle were the result of a personal vendetta. A month later, Fox & Friends cited him approvingly when they suggested Markle and Prince Harry were to blame for Prince Philip’s death.

Now, I have to wonder if Morgan was already in talks with Fox when he hammily quit his previous gig.

In Fox's press release today, Morgan promises he and Rupert Murdoch “are going to be building something new and very exciting together.”

"I want my global show to be a fearless forum for lively debate and agenda-setting interviews, and a place that celebrates the right of everyone to have an opinion, and for those opinions to be vigorously examined and challenged," Morgan continued. "I’m also delighted to become a columnist for The Sun and the New York Post, two brilliantly successful and popular newspaper brands. I’m going home and we’re going to have some fun."

I can hardly wait.

You can watch Snowflake Morgan walk off his own show, to which he never returned, below, from the March 9, 2021 Good Morning Britain, via Crooks and Liars.