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Eliot “Steamroller” Spitzer has successfully flattened TV co-host Kathleen Parker — getting her tossed from their CNN chatfest after just four months.
The cable news channel yesterday announced that Parker will leave the ratings-challenged “Parker Spitzer” to “focus on her writing.” The former governor, meanwhile, will take the primetime news program in a “new direction,” with an ensemble format featuring nightly guests and contributors.
The Post’s Page Six first reported in January that Parker’s position had grown precarious, that the show was plagued by infighting and that Parker’s ouster was imminent.
Yesterday — after Page Six reported that Spitzer was telling friends that his co-host “would be gone within a week” — CNN Executive Vice President Ken Jautz confirmed that Parker “has decided to leave.”
The show will be renamed “In the Arena,” Jautz said.
“I am extremely proud of the show we created,” Parker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative columnist with The Washington Post, said in a statement.
“It was a difficult decision to scale back my column a few months ago, and with the show going in a new direction, it is a good time to move on.”
Rumblings of discord on the 8 p.m. show, which debuted last fall to dismal ratings, reached a crescendo this year.
Parker and Spitzer’s relationship was strained from the start, sources have said.
Parker threatened to quit after fuming that her hooker-hiring co-host seemed to dominate the show, and Spitzer griped to pals that Parker was holding him back, insiders said.
The show saw a ratings boost this month when Parker was out sick and Spitzer hosted it alone.
Talks to boot Parker became “hot and heavy” by January, when The Post reported that former Fox News anchor E.D. Hill and National Review writer Will Cain were being eyed as replacements.
Jautz yesterday confirmed that Hill and Cain would join Spitzer’s show.
Parker will continue to show up on CNN “occasionally” to give “insights and commentary,” Jautz added.
In her statement, Parker thanked viewers and said she looked forward to a continued relationship with CNN.
Meanwhile, Spitzer said, “I wish Kathleen all the best in continuing on with her spectacular career.”
“It has been a joy working with her as a teammate, and I continue to be a huge fan of the wisdom that jumps from her written work.”