Ted Koppel has terminated his contract with the Discovery Channel early in a breakup both describe as "mutual" (Like that's ever true). Koppel says his serious long-form journalism didn't really fit with Discovery's new direction with shows like Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs. Also, Koppel admitted, the stuff he did, like a 4-part series on China, was kinda pricey:
Producing our kind of news-related programs is an expensive proposition. It has long been clear that neither of us is interested in an extension of the current contract.
Discovery just went public a couple months ago, so it's real interested in saving dough. But there's more to it than that, according to company spokesperson David Leavy:
The new management is more interested in projects that can be rerun for a long period of time both in the U.S. and internationally, and news programs have a shorter shelf life.
Makes some sense. However, we were psyched for more specials like Koppel's Living With Cancer and The Last Lynching. Those were real pick-me-ups.
Ohhhhhhhhh wait; there's also this.
-- Jake Kalish is the author of Santa vs. Satan: The Official Compendium of Imaginary Fights