In the three years after she left her post at "Dateline NBC," Maria Shriver collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from the network as part of an exit deal, even as she pondered whether she could continue her journalism career while her husband was governor of California.
Shriver, who relinquished her role at "Dateline" in February 2004, three months after Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn into office, continued to receive paychecks from NBC into 2007, according to statements of economic interest the governor is required to file in Sacramento.
The documents indicate that NBC paid her between $100,000 and $1 million during each of the last three years. Daniel Zingale, Shriver's chief of staff, declined to specify the exact amount. NBC had no comment.
The payments to Shriver were part of an "exit agreement" she arranged with the network in April 2004 after executives became uncomfortable with her working as a journalist while she was the state's first lady, Zingale said.
Had the network fired her, NBC would have been obligated to pay Shriver her full salary for the three years that remained on her contract. Instead, Shriver resigned with an option to eventually return to the news division. In exchange, NBC paid her a "fraction" of her salary for those years, he said.
"Given her career at NBC and the election of her husband as governor of California, Maria found herself in an unusual situation," Zingale said. "But there is absolutely nothing unusual about her exit agreement with NBC."
In 2004, NBC News executives cast Shriver's departure as an "extended leave of absence," expressing hope that she would return. Since then, she has appeared once on the network, as host of a special produced by the entertainment division about Roy Horn, the Seigfreid & Roy entertainer who was mauled by a tiger during a Las Vegas show.
Shriver contemplated returning to the news division as recently as late as March 2007, Zingale said. The exit agreement, along with Shriver's option to be reinstated, expired last year.
Nevertheless, a large office in "Dateline's" Burbank bureau is still assigned to Shriver, according to a news division employee. No one has been allowed to move into the spacious room, although it is sometimes used by correspondents to shoot stand-ups.
The payments NBC made to Shriver are commonplace in television news, in which networks are contractually bound to honor the terms of their agreements with talent, even if they decide they can no longer use them on the air.
