FNC Fires Chetry

No great loss, considering that babe machine they have over at Fox. One out, another in.

THE William Morris Agency tried to play hardball with the Fox News Channel, but it struck out big time - with its client, news cutie Kiran Chetry, getting cut from the network.

TVNewser reports William Morris super-agent John Ferriter - who'd recently started representing Chetry, co-host of "Fox & Friends" weekend shows - told the network to fire Gretchen Carlson, co-anchor of the higher-rated weekday "Fox & Friends," so Chetry could take her place.

But the backstabbing request backfired on Thursday, when Fox executives fired off an angry letter to Ferriter saying they were terminating their contract with Chetry for the treachery.

Sources tell the Web site the dark-haired, Nepalese beauty had been pulling down $300,000-plus a year, and Fox offered to bump her salary to $400,000 in a new contract that could have started March 6. But Ferriter countered with a salary demand of more than $700,000, plus his insistence that Chetry take over the morning job from Carlson, a blond former Miss America.

Chetry has already landed a substitute gig at CNN, the cable news graveyard. Guess I'll never see her again. Meanwhile, Fox announced the hiring of another fresh face, one Courtney Friel. Like I said, one out, another one in.