Carolyn Cassidy is being promoted at 20th Century Fox TV, rising to executive vice president of current programming after nine years with the studio. The move comes amid the studio’s merger with Disney.
Al Gore says he has no reservations about selling his Current TV cable news channel to Al-Jazeera. He says he considers Current TV, which was largely outflanked by MSNBC in its effort to be a liberal alternative to Fox News Channel, to have been a success. “We won every major award in television journalism, and we were profitable each year. But it’s difficult for an independent network to compete in an age of conglomerate. Our democracy has been hacked.”
The acquisition of Current, the news network cofounded by former Vice President Al Gore, boosts Pan-Arab news channel Al-Jazeera’s reach in the U.S. beyond a few large U.S. metropolitan areas including New York and Washington nearly ninefold to about 40 million homes. However, the nation’s second-largest TV operator, Time Warner Cable, dropped Current after the deal was confirmed Wednesday, a sign that the channel will have an uphill climb to expand its reach.
Exclusives
Mark Rosenthal, CEO of Current TV, is leaving the company and co-founder Joel Hyatt is taking over as CEO. Rosenthal, who was previously COO-president of MTV, succeeded Hyatt as CEO in 2009. He had previously been COO-president of MTV.
The American University School of Communication has agreed to buy Current, the trade newspaper and website that covers public broadcasting.
