Imus Update
NBC News explains why the talk-show host was fired

Don Imus' racist comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team led to a public outcry, but it was the voices of his fellow employees at NBC News that got his show yanked from TV. (CBS announced late Thursday that it has dumped Imus' radio program as well, effective immediately. CBS Radio carried the program on 61 stations across the U.S.)

Imus faced a cascade of criticism for calling the Rutgers team members "nappy-headed ho's" on his Imus in the Morning radio program, which had been simulcast on MSNBC. He made a public apology, and it appeared that the outrageously irreverent host would get off with a two-week suspension.

That all changed after a meeting late on the afternoon of April 10, which NBC News president Steve Capus held with about 30 of his staffers, including Today show weatherman Al Roker, the most high-profile African-American on-air personality in the news division. According to an NBC insider, Roker told Capus, "That could have been my daughter" Imus was joking about.

After hearing the concerns, Capus knew he had to do something more. The decision to cut ties with Imus became a lot easier when a number of his program's high-profile national advertisers said they were pulling their commercials off the show. While Imus' TV ratings had been growing recently, the simulcast was considered only modestly profitable for MSNBC.

Capus acknowledged that Imus had long been making politically incorrect cracks about women and minorities on his show, which has been on MSNBC since 1996. But the circumstances with the Rutgers team were different because they were "people in everyday life who did not deserve this." He added, however, that Imus' "body of work" was also a factor in the decision.