Current’s Joel Hyatt on Why He Stepped Back Into CEO Role

Current TV CEO Joel Hyatt spoke to Ad Week about why he replaced Mark Rosenthal as the channel’s CEO. Hyatt hired Rosenthal to add more entertainment programming, but with the hiring of Keith Olbermann, the channel decided to move toward news, commentary and information.

“Mark had a hugely successful career [as president and COO] at MTV,” Hyatt told Adweek. “But, you know, MTV is an entertainment network, and we now made the clear strategic decision to become a news network. And we’re a small company. There’s not a lot of room at the top for a lot of leaders. It was very amicable. It was going to be very crowded at the top. ”

With the hiring of former CNN DC bureau chief David Bohrman earlier this week, Hyatt and Current are trying to prove they belong in this game.

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