Blum: Mike Wallace “Wouldn’t Leave”

On today’s Reliable Sources, NY Sun TV critic and “Tick, Tick, Tick” author David Blum told Howard Kurtz that Mike Wallace was pushed out:

“They’ve been trying for the past several years to get him to cut back, and he would always agree, and then he would always produce far more pieces than he was contracted to do,” Blum said. “They were very anxious to open up not only that slot, but also that considerable amount of money that he was earning to hire younger correspondents, more correspondents to fill out the show.”

He continued: “The fact is that there’s an entire generation, if not multiple generations of people, who really don’t know who Mike Wallace is. And I think that CBS had to acknowledge that and is trying to bring about a change in the show. But it took a long time because Mike wouldn’t leave.”