Current taps programmer

Lewis Current TV has hired Air America co-creator Shelley Lewis in your thoughts up programming within the fledgling cabler. Lewis will account to Current prexy David Bohrman.The hire can be a strong indicator in the next steps for Current, which aspires to retool itself just like a 24-hour news-and-commentary internet inside the vein from the less corporately connected MSNBC. Professionals as well as the net's new star, Keith Olbermann, have mentioned their independence keeps them from being beholden for the interests of huge business, despite the fact that it will place these questions vulnerable place if this involves distribution unlike other small cablers possessed by bigger companies, Current TV isn't agreed to cable companies in the suite with elevated effective systems. If News Corp, for example, desires to boost Fox Business Network's distribution, it might sell FBN in the package with ratings celebrity Fox News. Current does not have such back-up. The network states its solution will probably be multiplatform vieweing. Lewis is "advisable person and team leader and contains a perfect combination of associations, experience and business drive to help us establish Current just like a new kind of multiscreen news experience for just about any new kind of news viewer," Bohrman mentioned.As well as the cabler's audience remains growing thanks largely to Olbermann's following. Olbermannites aided to improve Current's ratings to historic levels when the commentator's program -- entitled "Countdown," as was his MSNBC show -- opened up taken.Lewis' connection with television includes stints at CNN and ABC News, where she professional produced "American Morning With Paula Zahn" and "Hello America" from 1997 to 1998, correspondingly. Bohrman and Lewis aren't others -- the two labored together within the Alphabet on "World News Now." Contact Mike Thielman at mike.thielman@variety.com