Current taps programmer

Lewis Current TV has hired Air America co-creator Shelley Lewis to mind up programming in the fledgling cabler. Lewis will are accountable to Current prexy David Bohrman.The hire is really a strong indicator from the next steps for Current, which aspires to retool itself like a 24-hour news-and-commentary internet within the vein of the less corporately connected MSNBC. Executives and also the net's new star, Keith Olbermann, have stated their independence keeps them from being beholden towards the interests of large business, even though it does insert them in a vulnerable place when it comes to distribution unlike other small cablers possessed by bigger companies, Current TV is not offered to cable companies inside a suite with increased effective systems. If News Corp, for instance, really wants to boost Fox Business Network's distribution, it may sell FBN inside a package with rankings celebrity Fox News. Current doesn't have such back-up. The network states its solution is going to be multiplatform vieweing. Lewis is "a good idea person and team leader and it has an ideal mixture of associations, experience and business drive to assist us establish Current like a new type of multiscreen news experience for any new type of news viewer," Bohrman stated.And also the cabler's audience continues to be growing thanks largely to Olbermann's following. Olbermannites assisted to enhance Current's rankings to historic levels once the commentator's program -- titled "Countdown," as was his MSNBC show -- opened captured.Lewis' experience of television includes stints at CNN and ABC News, where she professional created "American Morning With Paula Zahn" and "Hello America" from 1997 to 1998, correspondingly. Bohrman and Lewis aren't other people -- the 2 labored together in the Alphabet on "World News Now." Contact Mike Thielman at mike.thielman@variety.com