Google CEO consults CNN producer on TV gig: report

Eric Schmidt, Google's outgoing and outspoken chief executive, has been consulting with a CNN producer about hosting a television show, the New York Post reported Monday.

Schmidt, 55, who is to step aside in April for Google co-founder Larry Page, has held talks with Liza McGuirk, executive producer of CNN's "Parker Spitzer," about developing a show featuring himself as host, the newspaper said.

"Eric wants to be a talk-show host," the Post quoted an unidentified source as saying. "He's been working with Liza to develop a show, but he has not yet been picked up by any network."

The Post said Schmidt filmed a pilot for CNN in August but quoted a "CNN insider" as saying it was a "complete disaster."

Schmidt is widely credited with helping build Google into an Internet search and advertising powerhouse with annual revenue of nearly $30 billion.

But some of his public statements -- often deployed in jest -- have raised eyebrows in the past such as the time he said that Google's policy with product development is to "get right up to the creepy line but not cross it."

Or when he jokingly said that people could "just move" if they were unhappy with having pictures of their homes put online for Google's Street View mapping service.

Schmidt is to remain with Google as executive chairman after stepping down as CEO on April 4.

(c) 2011 AFP