It wouldn’t be fair to let Katie Couric have all the drama at CBS this week, so why don’t we revisit The Early Show, a place that one spy says simply: “The Titanic is out of deck chairs.”
Might the Shelley Ross regime have been better than the current Rick Kaplan affair? The argument is being made.
This week, Claire Peterson, described to us as “one of the strongest” producers and bookers, told Early Show interim exec producer Rick Kaplan that she had an offer from another network, and planned on accepting. (We’re told the offer came from ABC’s Nightline.)
He didn’t give her much of a response. The night she told CBS brass of the job switch, she worked a full day and stayed through the night. Then, at 5:30am, she was awoke by a call from Kaplan, who was phoning from the control room to say he would match the offer she received and pay $5,000 more to keep her.
Yesterday, she and Kaplan finally sat down together, and she declined the offer. That didn’t sit well with Kaplan, who is known for his temper. Let’s just say he got “very nasty and abusive” …
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