Perhaps he said he quit to save face but what I’ve heard is that his show was canceled. I’m assuming the ratings were on a downhill slide and people were tiring of his smug personality.
That being said, however, I did find him to be a good interviewer. And compared to Larry King, whom he replaced, he asked better more probing questions, I thought.
But there are others who are equally skilled interviewers who don’t grate on people’s nerves as he does.
I think the other part of the problem was that he was almost the polar opposite of Larry and people who were longtime Larry fans were used to his much more relaxed style. So Morgan was just too jarring a personality for that time period.
I think that either Anderson Cooper or Shep Smith would be good replacements.
Both are really intelligent, good interviewers, and fair in their approach.