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Last year MSNBC hired conservative radio talk-show host Michael Savage for a weekend program, then fired him for anti-gay comments barely four months into the job Kaplan said MSNBC would rely more on live than pre-produced programming Jesse Ventura was hired with much fanfare but he never made it to prime time, and his weekend show lasted only a few months But his nightly newsmagazine, "Newsstand," was a ratings failure Kaplan ran CNN's domestic operations from 1997 to 2000, and then taught at Harvard "We're closer than we've ever been to CNN, so we're delighted about that Phil Donahue was brought in to compete with Fox's popular talk show host Bill O'Reilly, but lasted less than a year "Rick was exactly the right guy and exactly the right time," said NBC News President Neal Shapiro In interviews Tuesday, they said they anticipated no immediate changes to a prime-time lineup that includes an irreverent news hour with Keith Olbermann, a talk show anchored by Deborah Norville and a political chat show with Joe Scarborough It has been eclipsed as a competitor to CNN by Fox News Channel, which began the same year " MSNBC has never lived up to its promise since being created by NBC News and Microsoft in 1996 " Going more heavily into news as an alternative to talk shows is a good counterprogramming opportunity available to MSNBC, Tyndall said "The trouble with that is it's more expensive," he said "They have a really good thing going there right now, and what we want to do is tune it up and help it develop and help it grow "The first step is we've established some stability," he said, "and the second step is injecting someone who can further inspire the staff and bring them to new heights and I think that's what Rick will do Kaplan will work within a management structure where Shapiro is his boss, and both are overseen by Jeff Zucker, who's in charge of both NBC News and entertainment Ex-CNN Head Hired to Replace MSNBC CEO Feb 17, 5:07 PM EST Former CNN chief Rick Kaplan was hired Tuesday to run MSNBC, the perennially last-place cable news network that has spent much of its history struggling to find an identity On the other hand, MSNBC needs to move to the next level Kaplan replaces Erik Sorenson, MSNBC's general manager since 1998, who has been reassigned to long-term projects at NBC News There were reports that MSNBC in the past was hindered by micromanaging from NBC News Both Shapiro and Kaplan acknowledge the identity problems, and say they want to try stability ââ‚¬â€? for a change Shapiro said Kaplan is a news innovator who isn't afraid to work with individual producers to help improve their shows "I won't be looking for MSNBC all of a sudden to turn into `Dateline' every hour," he said MSNBC has averaged 373,000 viewers in prime time this season, compared with CNN's 927,000 and Fox's 1 " They don't stick with one thing," said Andrew Tyndall, a consultant who monitors the content of news programming "The trouble with MSNBC is they have a short attention span 62 million, according to Nielsen Media Research A tall, outspoken character known for his friendship with Bill Clinton, Kaplan tried to inject more pre-produced programming into CNN to keep viewers during slow news periods In 2003 he returned to ABC News, where he had been a longtime producer, in a senior management role planning coverage of the Iraq war and presidential campaign