Larry King's oil spill telethon flops

Larry King's celebrity-filled oil spill telethon flopped in the ratings.

The program came in fourth in the 8 p.m. hour Monday evening with 547,000 viewers. Fox News’ "O’Reilly
Factor" (2.7 million) was first, followed by MSNBC’s "Countdown" (1 million) and HLN's "Nancy
Grace" (787,000). At 9 p.m., King climbed to third with 647,000 viewers.

King's efforts raised $1.8 million. Given the nonstop amount of news coverage for the Gulf of Mexico disaster, that's a soft number.

By comparison, King's Haiti earthquake telethon in January (not to be confused with George Clooney's cross-network telethon) raised nearly $5 million overnight.

Really though: Did anybody expect that asking viewers during a recession to help pay for an oil company's mistake would generate a landslide of ratings or donations? King and his celebrity friends should help pressure BP to pay for their mess, not viewers.