The Hollywood Reporter's Paul Gough spoke to Bob Novak before CNN announced his departure this morning. "It was a mutual agreement," Novak said.

He said that neither the Valerie Plame case nor the incident on the set had much to do with his departure. "I'm sure I wouldn't have stayed anyway. I don't think they would have kept me. It was irrelevant to the final decision," Novak said. He said that appearing on television had taken an enormous amount of his time and he wanted to scale it back. "I felt that in 25 years, I had a very good run with CNN. They were very nice to me but all good things come to an end," Novak said. "I felt with all those shows canceled, I'll be 75 years old in February and I felt that I really have been working too hard for somebody my age."

The comments in bold above are key: With all of CNN's political programming eliminated from the network's schedule, Novak really had nowhere to go. Novak "said he would continue his syndicated column and appear on television, though he wouldn't discuss any specifics," the report adds.