My take on it is… they wanted her out and instead of flubbing it up like the Starr exit, they let her say this and go out with dignity.

h, disagree - rosie brought the ratings, they wanted to keep her. she just wanted a huge raise and only one more year. they didnt want to pay her a ton for one more year - (so she'd have time to use them as a platform to transition into a new show immediately after leaving a second season) they would have given her a huge raise for three though, so she would be locked in and theirs to keep.