Dennis Miller keeps hiking into hackery.

CNBC, the home of Dennis Miller's latest regular gig, has announced that after tonight he will need to look for a new gig. According to a May 11 memo from network president Mark Hoffman, CNBC wants to "expand its business programming," and Miller's show really isn't business oriented. What is rather funny is that the memo says

I wanted to let you all know that we will be expanding our signature Business Day programming up to Primetime on the East Coast and will be adding an additional airing of "Mad Money with Jim Cramer" at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

We will be introducing a new Business Day program at 7 p.m. ET sometime in the Third Quarter. I will share additional details about this program in the coming weeks.

As the Business News Leader, it is incumbent upon us to ensure that our influential, out-of-home audience has access to our signature Business Day programming throughout their business day from coast to coast.

I have spoken with Dennis Miller about these plans and he has let me know that his strong preference is to leave his program immediately. Therefore, the final episode of "Dennis Miller" will air this Friday, May 13.

The memo talks about programs during the business day, yet Miller's show was on primetime in the evening. And so Dennis decided to quit because of a change in daytime programming? Yeah, right. But wait just a moment...According to CNN, the desire to focus on business programs during the day would affect primetime: "Mark Hoffman said the changes are meant to give the West Coast more opportunities to see the network's signature shows during business hours." But wait just another moment...Miller's show aired at 6:00 p.m. on the West Coast. By that time, business-types are either home or stuck in traffic, so they have no need for business programming on CNBC at that time. Also, couldn't CNBC have simply moved Miller's show to one hour later in order to avoid any possible conflict with the time on the West Coast? Of course CNBC could have done that. So what's going on here?

A report from the AP presents an explanation:

CNBC is canceling comic Dennis Miller's low-rated political talk show after less than 16 months, replacing it with a business show rerun.

Miller's prime-time program, featuring a mixture of comedy, interviews and his conservative political opinion, was seen by an average of 168,000 viewers since its January 2004 launch, according to Nielsen Media Research.

That number has dipped to 114,000 this year with the presidential election campaign over.

CNN gives another interesting fact: "Miller drew an average of 107,000 viewers during April, a 59 percent drop from last year during the same time period[.]" (emphasis added). Basically, it comes down to this: Miller's show was a steaming pile of crap. That's why he got sacked.

Miller became the comedy hipster of the right, got his own show in primetime, and then he couldn't get people to watch him. Let me put this another way...Miller started being a monkey boy for the GOP, was welcomed with open arms and joy by Republicans--and then he could not deliver a program they would watch.

What a pathetic hack.