So just how much will Piers Morgan earn if he replaces Larry King on CNN? Try somewhere around $5 million to $6 million per year, reports The Hollywood Reporter. Still, that’s less than the $10 million per year the network had been shelling out for King, points out the New York Post.  

The contract, which the "America’s Got Talent" judge is close to signing, doesn’t include any contractual exits that would allow either Morgan or the network to break from the deal before it ends, the Post says. "The decision to hire Morgan represents a huge gamble for CNN — handing over its most famous show to a personality who is basically unknown in the US," the Post points out.

CNN has managed King’s departure with a series of missteps, writes Nellie Andreeva at Deadline.com. First was the network’s leaked plans for finding a replacement before King had even announced he’d be leaving. Then CNN waited until June 29, the day the show’s second-quarter ratings came out, to announce King’s departure. The network had to know the ratings wouldn’t be pretty, and given that King "later listed spending more time with his family as the reason for his retirement from the daily grind, this was hardly the right way or timing to make that claim sound believable," Andreeva writes.