LOUIS RUKEYSER OUT

AP is reporting that Maryland Public Television is retooling Wall Street Week, and in the process, Louis Rukeyser, its host, is being shown the door:

“They decided unilaterally not to proceed with me as the host of the show I created, wrote and maintained for 32 years,” Rukeyser said.

“They then tried to get me to remain with the program in a senior-commentator capacity, but I decided I didn’t want to have anything further to do with them.”

MPT and Fortune magazine are creating a new version of the weekly program called “Wall $treet Week With Fortune.” The show, slated to air in the fall, will feature Fortune editorial director Geoffrey Colvin and an undetermined co-anchor, MPT said.

Rukeyser’s contract runs through June. He said the final edition of the show will air June 28.

I’m very sorry to see Rukeyser get the boot–his was one of the very few PBS shows I enjoyed watching, especially in the early 1990s, when I began my career as a financial planner, something I did until the mid-1990s, when I moved out to California, and sold my practice. Of course, in that time, we’ve seen the rise of CNBC, CNNFN, and Bloomberg (and of course, all of the cable news channels have daily financial shows as well), rendering a weekly financial show largely superfluous. It will be interesting to see how Wall Street Week does under its new hosts.