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After his comments this morning, if Don Imus ever gets invited to a party on the terrace of Katie Couric's midtown apartment overlooking Central Park, he would be well advised not to get too close to the ledge. Chatting with Imus on MSNBC at 8:45 ET this morning about the travails of the CBS Evening News and the advent of Rick Kaplan as executive producer, media maven Howard Kurtz observed: "I don't know if this is attributable to Rick, but it seems to me that in the last week the show has a little bit of a harder edge,...

The Associated Press NEW YORK — CBS News today fired the executive producer of Katie Couric's struggling "CBS Evening News" broadcast and appointed former CNN and MSNBC president Rick Kaplan to the job. Kaplan replaces Rome Hartman, said CBS News President Sean McManus. Hartman had held the position since before Couric began at CBS last September. The newscast has been a distant third in the ratings behind ABC and NBC. During last month's pivotal ratings "sweeps" period, Couric's average of 7.6 million viewers was 6 percent down from what Bob Schieffer recorded in February 2006. More troubling was the newscast's...

Wednesday, Jun 07 Rick Kaplan Resigns: "He Has Led MSNBC Through A Period Of Impressive Growth" "I want to thank Rick for his service to MSNBC," NBC News president Steve Capus said in a message to MSNBC employees at 4pm. "Over the last two and a half years, Rick has been a tireless champion for the network and all the hard work you do each and every day. He has led MSNBC through a period of impressive growth especially in primetime. You, the staff at MSNBC, are enormously dedicated and have built a rock-solid foundation for our future growth. MSNBC...

MSNBC cancels Connected Coast to Coast, Entertainment shows: From: Kaplan, Rick (NBC Universal, MSNBC) Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 1:57 PM To: @MSNBC Everyone Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT I wanted to share with all of you some news about a realignment of our dayside coverage. Beginning after the first of the year, we are going to increase our live news coverage on the weekends. With the addition of our new program with Connie Chung and Maury Povich, we will be in live or topical news programming from 8am until 5pm on Saturday and Sunday. This more than doubles our current live weekend...

After being passed over for a chance to replace NBC News chief Neal Shapiro, MSNBC boss Rick Kaplan's job is in jeopardy, The Post has learned. Sources say Kaplan is likely to be out as the head of the ratings-challenged cable news network by the end of the year.

It might be a good idea for Keith Olbermann and Rick Kaplan to give each other a wide berth until things cool down. I hear that MSNBC staffers in the Secaucus newsroom-studio watched in horror Monday night as the volatile Kaplan, the president of the cable outlet, publicly laced into the eccentric Olbermann, anchor of the 8 p.m. show "Countdown," after the latter eulogized lung-cancer victim Peter Jennings with a graphic rant about his own cancer scare. Olbermann - a former pipe and cigar smoker - is said to have looked stunned as Kaplan raced onto the set and shouted...

MSNBC boss and pal of the Clintons, Rick Kaplan, has issued an order to his producers barring them from booking author Ed Klein on any of the network's shows, a source told The Post. Klein is the author of the recent scathing biography of Hillary Clinton, which de buted at No. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list after it was pub lished in June despite a virtual media blackout. In addition to Kaplan's black balling, several shows, including "Good Morning America" and CNN's Paula Zahn, extended invites to Klein to appear and then later pulled the plug.

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post wrote a story the other day about how MSNBC President Rick Kaplan has put more NBC into MSNBC. Since Rick Kaplan was named president of MSNBC a year ago, Kurtz reported, his colleagues say that one of his main achievements has been "forging a tighter partnership with NBC News." The assumption is that NBC is a valuable resource. But on one of the hottest stories around, the U.N. corruption scandal, NBC has been out to lunch. Why? Its U.N. reporter has been on the payroll of the U.N. lobby. Linda Fasulo, the U.N. correspondent...

When Brit Hume, chief Washington correspondent and managing editor of Fox News, won the coveted Taishoff Award for Broadcaster of the Year from Washington's National Press Foundation, media colleagues cheered. Hume had been 23 years at ABC News, where he won an Emmy before coming to Fox, and his popular program Special Report is part of the lineup at what is now the No. 1 cable network. But there was a loud burst of dissent from one of establishment journalism's most grandiloquent divas. Geneva Overholser, former watchdog ombudsman at the Washington Post who now oversees the prestigious Washington journalism program...

<p>The new chief of also-ran cable news network MSNBC, Rick Kaplan, brings with him two decades of broadcast news experience at ABC and, more recently, three years of cable news work at CNN.</p> <p>But the first point Kaplan made after being appointed to the beleaguered network last week was that he didn't plan any quick fixes.</p>

<p>February 18, 2004 -- What goes around came around yesterday when Don Imus found out that his new boss at MSNBC is the much-despised - by him - veteran news exec Rick Kaplan. "He's a lying, back-stabbing, snail-gut-sucking weasel, and he nearly ruined CNN," Imus railed on his WFAN wake-up show that MSNBC simulcasts - adding that the feeling is mutual.</p>

MSNBC DIED THIS WEEK, but few have yet noticed. Third among cable news networks, this joint venture begun in July 1996 by Microsoft and General Electric, owner of NBC, has lagged far behind rival Fox News Channel and CNN in viewers. But it has offered an alternative source of viewpoints, ranging from “Hardball” hosted by veteran Democrat Chris Matthews to “Scarborough County” hosted by former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough from the conservative Florida panhandle.“It was time for a change, to bring a new perspective to the channel,” an NBC executive this week reportedly told the New York Times. This...

Oh boy I would dump stock asap. Do these idiots Ever learn?

Big shake-up at MSNBC. Erik Sorenson out. Rick Kaplan in -- at top, say sources. Developing...

Former CNN Chief Rick Kaplan Joining ABC Wed Feb 19, 5:13 PM ET NEW YORK - With a potential war with Iraq looming, former CNN chief Rick Kaplan is rejoining ABC News for three months to oversee special events coverage, the network said Wednesday. Kaplan was a longtime ABC News producer before being hired to run CNN's domestic operations in 1997. He was ousted in 2000 and has most recently been teaching at Harvard. Kaplan has "proven his ability at producing and overseeing live television news coverage," said ABC News President David Westin. Westin's top deputy, Paul Friedman, announced last...

Fired by CNN last August after serving three years as president, Rick Kaplan has indicated he'd like to return to broadcast news -- on one of the networks. "I think people know I want to come back," Kaplan told the Philadelphia Inquirer Thursday, indicating that he had no preferences among the three major networks. "It's not if I can find a beautiful woman to marry, it's whether any beautiful woman wants to marry me. I'm hopeful." [On Thursday, the New York Daily News reported that Today show host Katie Couric was rumored to be drumming up support for Kaplan to...